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It's been a busy few weeks in the world of drive-by anonymous blog abuse, with controversy arising over anti-Cheney comments posted by readers on this website, then equal and opposite hubbub sprouting after commenters on conservative blog Little Green Footballs expressed regret that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's planned assassination attempt of Jimmy Carter had failed. So much for playing nice - but then, freedom of expression has always been one of the blogosphere's principle draws, even if it means that venom and acrimony now have a limitless breeding ground.
In the wake of all the political uproar, the MSM has taken up the topic of belligerent blog commenters and their subjects. Earlier this week, WaPo's Howard Kurtz weighed in on the ubiquity of abusive postings, mentioning (again) the Cheney backlash and exploring the comments sections on his own paper's website. As can be expected on any high profile site, it isn't always pretty, with plenty of commenters venting antipathy including but not limited to racist attacks of an African American teenager who'd been fatally shot by police. Kurtz notes the need for "policing the worst stuff without shutting down robust debate, " and he suggests we start by requiring names on all comments (despite the fact that would-be abusers can still use fake names with little chance of being discovered).
Now BusinessWeek joins the fray, sounding off on the recent web harassment of tech blogger Kathy Sierra, who was forced to cancel an appearance at an ETech conference after she received death and rape threats in her comments section as well as on other blogs. The tendency towards horrific language, or "cyberbullying," as writer Catherine Holahan dubs it, is once again identified as a common-to-the-point-of-mundane phenomenon on the Internet. But Holahan takes it a step further, examining the apparent tendency of commenters to spew greater and more energetic bile towards women than men. Not exactly a revelation to those of us in possession of ovaries and URLs, but it's still noteworthy that Holahan explores the question in detail, offering quotes from many female bloggers and noting the increase in sexually aggressive and violent comments on blogs by or about women. The topic of online harassment and abuse is neither new nor immediately fixable, but it's finally picking up mainstream play, and at the very least building some momentum in public discussion. Sierra's story is particularly horrifying (as is Cathy Seipp's) in its effective terrorizing and continued anonymity - while she has contacted the police, she still has no means of identifying the party threatening to kill her. Given the ease of slipping anonymously through the Internet, there but for the grace go us all.
