Haters: Harassment, Abuse, and Violence Online

by Bailey Poland

Cybersexism is rampant and can exact an astonishingly high cost. In some cases, the final result is suicide.

Bullying, stalking, and trolling are just the beginning. Extreme examples such as GamerGate get publicized, but otherwise the online abuse of women is largely underreported. Haters combines a history of online sexism with suggestions for solutions.

Using current events and the latest available research into cybersexism, Bailey Poland questions the motivations behind cybersexist activities and explores methods to reduce footprints of Internet misogyny, drawing parallels between online and offline abuse. By exploring the cases of Alyssa Funke, Rehtaeh Parsons, Audrie Pott, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and others, and her personal experiences with sexism, Poland develops a compelling method of combating sexism online.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Sociology, Technology, Internet, Cultural

312 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2016

About the author

I am a communications analyst, writer, and feminist activist. You'll find me tweeting about books, coffee, and feminism on any given day.

I completed my undergraduate degree in creative writing at Ohio University, and I am currently working towards a Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing at The University of Findlay.

My first book, Haters, will be released in November 2016.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: Arc via Netgalley

Taylor Swift tells us that since “haters gonna hate, hate” we should just “shake it off”. Considering how much shit, Ms Swift has taken because of her love life, she might be on to something. (And no, I am not a Swift fan. I just do not understand why a woman who dates is considered a slut, but a man who does it considered just human. Actually, I do understand, and it makes me want to strangle people).

Bailey Poland would disagree.

And I think she’s right.

Here’s the thing. There is some truth to the argument that a public figure must learn to take criticism and that criticism of a person’s work (say a song, a book) is different than criticism of a person. Too often many people blur that line (and for the record, it is fine if an author is cursing their computer screen while reading a review, but it can be a problem if the author goes public). Yet, in today’s modern world where many people have some type of online presence, everyone is criticizing for everything.

Well, almost everyone.

For instance, if a male gamer had talked about tropes in video games, would other gamers have created an app that allows a person digitally punch his face? Donald Trump has said some hateful things, but he really hasn’t called off speaking engagements because of safety concerns? What is it about women speaking their mind that drives some people insane?

You mean, it’s the women, speaking, minds part.

Poland’s book is really about cyber vixen, why it should not simply be shaken off (actually, why it can’t be) as well as suggests about how to deal with it. This means that she covers Gamergate as well as the various attacks upon Anita Sarkeesian. However, these are not the only examples that she uses. Even if you are a woman who has not been subjected to some type of cyber sexism. Whether it is a sexual comment while gaming, to being told you should be shot out of a canon for mentioning sexism to online mansplaining, most women have experienced some type of behavior that Poland is addressing. Usually women are told to shake it off.

Sometimes this doesn’t do anything.

Don’t believe me? Well, this is being posted on an online book community (more than one, actually), so you dear reader know about all those authors who target reviewers. How many of those reviewer targets were men and how many were women? While the reviewer issue isn’t something that Poland addresses directly (she does mention the whole puppy issue with the Hugos), you can quite easily apply many of her points. You can see many of her points simply watching how Trump and his supporters deal with many of their female critics.

In many aspects while Poland builds on the work of Laurie Penny, her work is more encompassing and somewhat less defined by gaming and geekdom -though gaming does prove a chapter or two. This is not surprising considering that Poland’s book is longer than Penny’s cyber seism essay. She also draws on the work of other feminists both in terms of strict feminist theory as well as cybersexism theory (if that is the correct term). In many ways, her books is timely because some of the issues and ideas that she mentions are the same ways that get used to explain the success of Trump’s political run.

The closing section of the book covers methods to deal with cybersexism , and perhaps this is the most important because it can be difficult to deal with speech issues online, where tone can be largely absent. And where is that line between speech and harassment in some cases).

This book is a timely and important read.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man, I did not pick the right time to start reading Haters: Harassment, Abuse, and Violence Online (yay Oxford comma!). I started this two days before the American Election Day, and then after those results, I just had to kind of … put it down a bit. I was planning to read it over a week or so, because like Indigenous Writes , this is an academic-but-accessible book about some heavy stuff, and reading it in one or two sittings wasn’t going to do me any favours. Bailey Poland speaks knowledgeably and constructively about exactly what it says in the title. She grounds the book both in academic theory and in recent, important examples of targeted abuse and hatred campaigns online. The result is a book both illuminating and, at times, galvanizing—but it’s also a heavy subject. Trigger warning for abusive, misogynistic language and gendered insults.

Poland acknowledges her own privileges upfront. Moreover, she repeats this throughout the book. I really like this. She says near the beginning:

Sexism as it affects online life is the major focus of this work, with the key caveat that online harassment and abuse are rarely—if ever—linked to gender alone.

(It’s at this point that I started to think I’d really like this book.) Towards the end, as she examines the explicit theoretical roots of cyberfeminism, Poland adds:

A modern cyberfeminism must be an intersectional cyberfeminism, with room to examine how technology and the Internet can be used to combat multiple oppressions, rather than creating easy metaphors that erase variety and disguise problems that have many roots.

I appreciate that Poland acknowledges her privilege and some of the privilege and biases present in the work of her predecessors. In doing this, she avoids some of the “white feminist” problems that plague a lot of feminist discourse, particularly within the spaces of tech and the Internet. Poland attempts to spotlight and centre the struggles that Black women and trans women, in particular, face, without trying to speak for these groups (as she does not belong to them).

The first part of the book is devoted to defining, explaining the origins of, and categorizing cybersexism. Although Poland mostly discusses explicit examples of misogynistic acts and utterances, she also mentions the unconscious bias that pervades online spaces:

For example, the design of technology to suit an ideal user (presumed to be male) or to make it more difficult for women to access and use is also cybersexism. Some examples include making smartphones too large for the average woman’s hand, health and fitness tracking apps that exclude menstruation (or regard the tracking of menstruation as only for cisgender women and aimed only at pregnancy) or designing a “revolutionar”y heart implant that works for 86 percent of men and only 20 percent of women.

I’ve long been fascinated by science and technology, but I also grew up believing science was this objective, neutral pursuit. Even after I started understanding gender issues and feminism, it took me a long time to come around to the idea that science is as much of a social construct as something like gender. So this is a theme that is close to my heart, because even though I don’t go around cussing out women on the Internet, my behaviours can still be sexist. The mostly-male teams designing the technologies Poland mentions above are not sitting around going, “Hey, how can we make the world more awesome, except for women?” This is being done because people aren’t stopping to think about how users other than themselves might experience the technology—and, of course, because not enough women are represented in the field.

Poland goes on to examine some specific examples of massive abuse campaigns, most notably Gamergate. (I had totally missed Christina Hoff Sommers’ involvement with Gamergate, so that was interesting to learn about.) With well-cited reference to studies and philosophers of technology and power, Poland notes how “online spaces have always been, and remain, areas where dominance and control remain deeply important”, and so:

In many ways that’s the true purpose of cybersexist abuse; to wear down individual women so that they give up and leave the space to the men.

This type of silencing is so troubling to me. It’s not just outright physical threats of violence. It’s more pernicious than that. And for those of us who are not exposed to such levels of abuse, this silencing is even easier for us to overlook, ignore, and erase. In doing so, even those of us with the best of intentions unintentionally contribute to the silencing of women, and that makes online spaces all the poorer.

Fortunately, Haters is not just about the harassment that women experience. It is also a call to action. Poland addresses multiple stakeholders who can solve this problem. She calls on social media platforms to take more responsibility for preventing harassment without putting the onus on the victim. She calls on politicians and law enforcement to recognize online harassment for the serious problem it is, and to educate themselves so they understand what it means when someone reports being doxxed or is worried they’ll be swatted.

Finally, she passes on Leigh Alexander’s advice to men:

She suggests that men need to stop asking women what to do, stop expecting women to educate them about the abuse they are suffering, stop trying to explain the harassment, and stop telling women how to respond to it.

Again, this is another one of those times that even well-intentioned allies can get it wrong and exacerbate a situation. It’s really natural to ask someone to explain an issue to you, especially when, as an ally, you’ve just started to learn that you should listen to the voices of marginalized people instead of talking over them. But it’s not the job of women to educate men about the harassment they are facing. If women like Poland and Alexander and Quinn, et al, want to speak out about it, then hell yeah we should listen—but we shouldn’t demand it of them.

So I’ll amplify what Poland is saying in Haters (so you can get the gist of it, until you read it yourself, obviously). Men should be more aware of how their privilege helps them, blinds them, and affects those around them. We should help women one-on-one, without emphasizing their role as victims. We should reach out and help educate other men, because we shouldn’t assume that women are going to do it for us.

As I’m writing this review, I’m doing two things that demonstrate the paradox of the Internet. First, I’m watching Desert Bus for Hope 10, a streaming charity marathon where a large group of people play a boring video game 24/7 to raise money for Child’s Play Charity. During the run, the group interacts with people in a chatroom, busks by performing challenges to drum up donations, and runs silent and live auctions and giveaways. There are celebrity call-ins, and good times are had. It’s all for the children, and Desert Bus manages to raise an incredible amount of money every year. This marathon is one of my favourite annual events, and it is an example of how the Internet can help bring strangers together to help other strangers. There is a wonderful power here—but there are biases too.

The second thing I’m doing is watching a woman I follow on Twitter, an author, deal with days-long misogynistic and anti-Semitic abuse because she dared to email an elector with her opinion about why he shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump in December. She posted the rude response that she received, and this led to more hatred and abuse. She is far from the only woman I follow on Twitter whom I’ve seen deal with this or talk about it; and they all deal with it far more than I know about. And I’m really sad that this happens, that people feel it’s OK to do this—and that too many bystanders let it happen or don’t consider it a serious problem because “it’s online” and therefore not real.

I don’t experience this type of abuse. I’m a nobody, so I don’t get any abuse, and even if I did, I’m white and male and able-bodied and present straight, so I have a whack of privilege that insulates me from these experiences. I’m so insulated, in fact, that if I didn’t pay attention and go out looking for these incidents, and books about these incidents like Haters, I could miss them. I could believe that the problem is not as widespread, urgent, or harmful as women claim it is.

Here’s the thing about whether or not you should believe women when they say they’re being harassed.

Many, many women can tell you stories of being harassed. So either you believe them, or you don’t. If you don’t believe women, it means you think they are lying (or mistaken because aren’t they all overly-emotional and sensitive?). And the idea that women, as a category of people, are deceptive, is stereotypical and sexist.

Believing women is a prerequisite for feminist thought and, you know, being a decent human being.

Unfortunately, those of us with male privilege often have experiences that make it hard for us to understand the perspectives that many women have as a result of their experiences. And it’s for this reason that I feel Haters is essential reading for men more so than for women, for whom much of this book will probably feel very obvious and familiar. Not saying women shouldn’t read this book—academically it’s quite interesting—but it will hopefully be more useful for men like me who better want to understand these experiences that we just don’t have.

Haters does feel very academic, coming as it does with numerous references and a very dry, didactic tone. Unlike more polemical feminist non-fiction, then, it took a little longer for me to read—but that makes it no less useful. I wouldn’t recommend starting out here (go read Unspeakable Things first!), but if you want to continue to broaden your understanding of the complicated ways in which the Internet can be harmful for women and other marginalized groups, Haters is a great resource.

Thanks to NetGalley and the University of Nebraska Press for allowing me to read an electronic ARC of this book.

[Yzabel Ginsberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

I don't read non-fiction that often, so when I do, I always want those books to be good, to teach me something, and/or to make me think. I guess this one was all three? I pretty much "enjoyed" reading it—from an academic point of view, because let's be honest, the problems it describes aren't so savoury, and it's such a shame they're still here in 2016. Interesting, too, was how I could discuss it with a couple of friends, and they hadn't necessarily realised either all that online harrassment involves: not just the insulting posts/tweets/interactions, but how all those get dismissed so easily, and by basically everybody and their dog, under the umbrella of "don't feed the trolls" and "if you don't like it, just turn off your computer".

Because not feeding offenders doesn't mean they'll stop: what they want is not always attention, but the feeling that they've "won" by driving you away.

Because "just turn the computer off" is not a solution, especially not in our age where every potential recruiter and employer looks you up on the web, and if you don't maintain some kind of online presence, you're not good enough, but if what they find are blogs and profiles defaced by abusers, it's even worse.

Because, sadly but unsurprisingly, it still all ties into the "blame the victim" culture; into victims being the ones who must waste time and make efforts to get rid of the abuse; into (yes, once again) the fact that women and minorities get a lot more abuse than ye olde middle-class white guy—and that it's about abusers demanding that their victims waste their time on them, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

I've been lucky so far in terms of abuse, but I've lived in bad places offline and I know what it is to get cat-called by shady guys in the street, who then proceed to insult you when you don't drop everything you're doing to turn all your attention to them. So, yeah, when we have to contend with that shite online as well? Not good.

Sadly here as well, people who'd benefit most from reading such a book (in order to realise why it's not okay—or that we've called their BS long ago and the only ones they're fooling is themselves) won't read it, won't care, will probably abuse the author, whatever. Nevertheless, I think this would be food for thought for many, many other people: it's amazing (and worrying) how easy it is to internalise that culture of abuse, to react ourselves with mild aphorisms like "just block them", as if ignoring what's happening will make it vanish by magic. Tiny little details that we continuously feed into our own daily narratives, poisoning ourselves, even when we're obviously against abuse and behave in civil ways otherwise.

The author provides quite a few examples of abuse situations or larger events like the Gamergate, showing how abusers behave, and what kind of dangers this can all lead to, ranging from personal and professional issues to physical wounds and worse (revealing information like Social Security numbers and addresses, for the targets to be abused offline as well).

The one thing I found a little difficult at times was the academic style, which was dry in places, and sometimes seemed to repeat itself (possibly in attempts to keep it to a more generic kind of language, I'd say, and prevent it from immediately being labelled as "see you're writing about abusers but you do that in an offending way"—also note the irony of, once again, having to keep ourselves in check so that the real abusers won't be able to bounce on it). On the other hand, the book as a whole is accessible and not "hard" to read and understand.

Conclusion: Important matter, dealt with in understandable ways, and deserving of being read by a wide range of people.

[Naima · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOTE: THIS BOOK DISCUSSES ABLEISM, CLASSISM, MISOGYNY, TRANSPHOBIA AND RACISM. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT SHOW ABLEIST, CLASSIST, MISOGYNIST, TRANSPHOBIC, OR RACIST SENTIMENTS IN THE BOOK.
** I received this book through NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press in exchange for an honest review **

I can honestly say that this is the next step up from The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. Poland's (the author, not the country) discussion of misogyny and how women are received on the internet had an intersectionality that I definitely didn't expect from a straight white woman. She discusses how disabled women's voices are downplayed, misogynoir, 'trans panic', and topics I haven't seen more mainstream feminists discuss, despite their elevated platform. I was somewhat surprised at how often I found myself nodding along with things that I had never thought about before (and how I had just assumed that something was supposed to be the way it was). You know a nonfiction book is good when you already know the subject, and still learn something. My favorite tidbits are below:

* The distinct lack of neutrality in internet spaces, which is the lingering result of the internet's creation and history, allows men to frame women as interlopers in what are perceived as male-only online spaces and to justify men's abusive reactions to women's presence, even though the internet has not been male-dominated for more than two decades.
* By forcing the conversations to analyze women's responses to abuse rather than the abuse itself, cybersexists reinforce the idea that abuse is as inevitable as bad weather, and as result make it seem like our only option is to choose how we react to it. This misdirection also disguises the fact that cybersexist harassment and trolling are not components of a neutral or harmless activity that merely results in hurt feelings.
* The "not all men" claim is a particularly common and pernicious form of derailing, in which a man [...] respond to women's discussions of sexism by reminding the participants that "not all men" engage in whatever form of sexism is under discussion. While it's true that not every man engages in every type of sexist activity, this form of derailing has the immediate effect of re-centering the conversation on men who want some kind of credit for not doing what's being discussed. This also reduces focus on the problem at hand (the men who do act in sexist ways), and often takes the form of forcing women to defend their language choices, never mind that "all men" weren't under discussion in the first place.
* The use of gender as a tool to silence women is a dominance tactic that aims to restore control of online conversations to men by painting women as inferior and objectified, or reducing them to silence.

[Emelie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book explores cybersexism and its varying problems. The books opens with an explanation of cybersexism and gives thoughts to that offline sexism carries on to the Internet - that women's space to talk and discuss is as limited offline and online, and as soon as men ("not all men are also addressed in the book to explain that such phrases, while might be goodhearted and through, further limit women's space to talk and take place by focusing away from what the women are experiencing to what men are experiencing when women talk about their experiences and troubles) feel that women are taking too much of a space, they shut the women down.

Poland discusses sexism both by sharing personal experiences and by drawing from (limited) research and other people's experiences. When Poland has build a base on what cybersexism is Poland ventures to talk about specific happenings, such as Gamersgate and how cybersexism, doxing and stalking affects women and how it many times have forced the women harassed to shut down their online persona and how they've lost jobs and homes due to harassment.

Poland ends the book by discussing cyberfeminism and how cyberfeminist ideas can help to understand and find solutions to the harassment, and also discussing the lack of tools to stop harassment, from Twitter, especially, and other social media being slow to take action or that they don't understand the problem and seriousness of it at all. Poland also takes up the issue with the American police not understanding this problem, and how many just laughs it off as being online life, jokes, and that women are too sensitive - not seeing how damaging online harassment can be. Poland also addresses intersectionalism and how that's important to take in mind while discussing all these problems.

The books ends by listing organisations that tries to do something about cybersexism, what more can be done, and what research needs to be made to further understand these problems.

The book was build up well, going from general discussion about sexism and cybersexism to adresseing specific problems and then on solutions and what needs to be done. The book is easily read, as Poland doesn't complicate the writing and that Poland gives multiple examples to the problems discussed further help to really understand the problem. I was struck with how scary all this is, and how I don't reflect on it too much, though I'm a woman. It's horrendous to read how women's lives have been ruined by what some people just sees as a game, and their right to voice such opinions, as the Internet's "just" the Internet and should be the Wild West.

A good, eyeopening read.

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scholarly look at - mainly - abusive comments to and about women, starts outside the netscape and drops in and out of chatrooms, twitter accounts and gaming. The author has clearly made a great effort to collect statistics about violence and harassment towards women, people of various races and those with a disability or an alternative sexuality. This however appears an academic paper and not particularly helpful to a person being harassed. I wish she wouldn't use words like cisgender which to me don't mean anything at all.

Certainly it's better than a recent study I saw on the wall of a college, from the Psychology Department, which presented some statistics of bullying online and never broke the numbers down between male and female or mentioned that girls / women are far more likely to receive bullying than boys / men.

The author tells us that from the first days of the internet, the earliest sites were white supremacist. Well, that wasn't my experience. The first topic to be discussed by the men who set up such communication was science fiction. I got e-mail in the mid 1990s and within minutes was chatting on CompuServe to a gentleman in Mexico about Ursula K LeGuin. The population on CompuServe appeared to be well balanced and moderate. Earlier sites were hacker chat boards. I've no doubt extreme sites for specific purposes quickly evolved and I wouldn't go to a racist site in a fit. But people can always complain to the site platform host. And people can use the sites they want to use and leave the world's intelligence agencies to monitor the weirdos.

We are told that women come in for more abuse whether present or absent on websites and women are talked down to, talked across and jeered at often by inadequate men. I've no doubt this does happen but there are sites where women feel comfortable, like mumsnet, and there are many, many grown men who don't talk down to women, do have women managers and wouldn't dream of hitting their girlfriends. Focusing entirely on the bad side can turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as weak or young people will follow the example they are shown.

I think a lot of the early influence comes from big business marketers. Recently online we saw a mother comparing a boys' magazine with tools, astronomy and survival gear on the cover, to a girls' mag which had a cover about makeup, hair and being attractive to boys. Firms want to mould girls' brains while they are young and trap them into a lifetime of buying expensive cosmetics and fashion. I'm for buying the boys' version. There are also companies' sites aimed at women, some of which in my experience, try to make women self conscious about their underarms or shove ads for incontinence pads in front of women likely to have stopped needing tampons. Complain, ladies. Do men get treated this way? I doubt it. They probably get ads for watches, razors, sports gear and games. The author never looks at this issue.

Some cultures speak or do abuse of women, gay people and other races and creeds continually; they live by it. Like the IS beheading videos. Like 'honour-killings'. Like forcing women to cover their hair, or be edited out of photos. I'm sure this kind of hideous propaganda is a large part of the internet whole, but by not saying so, in this book, the author is putting blame entirely on people who don't all deserve it. Another sidelight is where she complains that American black men are more likely to be jailed than white, but doesn't mention that black men are more likely to be rappers with the abusive, low intellect, drug-fuelled lyrics which routinely degrade and promote violence against women. If that's how some men of whatever colour want to live, or broadcast their words on the net, I'd want them jailed for it too. There are decent men of every colour. We're told a few times that women of colour are more likely to be abused on line than white women, but we're not told what colours all the male abusers are. I think it would be equally relevant.

Another complaint by the author is when a women is doxxed, that is all her documents are exposed on the net like her photo, address, social security numbers, bank details etc. Clearly not good. But men get hacked too. The most recent case I've seen reported, was when a girl decided to pose naked on line to a group of guys in a chatroom, and was asked her first name and to pose with any medication she was taking. Allegedly this was enough data for the more low-life of the guys to doxx her and send her pictures to all her online friends. If this is true, they were all acting stupidly, but nobody should put naked pictures of themselves on line and imagine they won't go any further. She might as well have pasted them onto a bus. People have to take responsibility for their own actions. To quote this book: don't feed the trolls. This is entirely different to the instances of webcam hacking, where the girl is unaware she is being watched. I didn't see the author warning about this possibility and the fact that lists of hacked cams are sold on the dark net.

The author was trolled and threatened for a year without inviting or returning abuse. She says the troll kept setting up and cancelling his twitter accounts and twitter couldn't track him, which seems unlikely to me. Eventually the harassment was so bad that she went to the police and a young officer took her seriously, though other officers don't understand the seriousness of such offences. I've found that the police are often way behind the times even about phishing mails.

Some interesting studies include an eight-year study which showed those reporting online abuse were 72% female; this doesn't tell us whether men just don't report it. So a different study set up male and female usernames and tracked responses; the female ones received 25 times the abuse that male ones did. A woman tells us that once she switched to a male username on twitter, other users suddenly saw her comments as level headed. My thought: harassment is always wrong, but if a site carries abuse, treat it like a rowdy bar. Complain and leave. There are other sites. Probably much better ones. Bring your friends. Set up your own site. When the bad site loses its users it will lose its income. Nobody is forcing you to use any social site. Except models, who are contractually obliged to tweet. And would-be authors hoping to get accepted by trad publishers, which only want authors who have thousands of facebook followers. Time net users looked at who actually uses these sites and why. The author doesn't do this.

The author refers to Gamergate 'which will be discussed in chapter five' then refers to it continually. So I thought she might as well have discussed it at the start so we would all know exactly what she meant. She adds that women who had an online presence in Pakistan get vastly more abuse on and off line. That's because it's Pakistan. You can't ignore the abusive culture in the country when you talk about the internet. Any more than you can talk about the escalated number of sexual assaults in Cologne and ignore the fact that they were perpetrated by recent immigrant men from an abusive culture. The women should get out of that culture. By seeing on line that there are other ways to live, they may get the strength to leave the abuse. Presumably the men want to stop these women seeing that they have options. Classic abusing partner.

We read that women who are harassed online frequently see escalation, mobbing, and spillover into offline such as stalking physically and companies turning down the woman for employment because of hate mail about them online. Stress can be upsetting in itself. We're told of a student who killed herself after teen bullying; this is more a problem of American school culture than workplace or gaming. Because really, who cares what your former classmates think? From there we move to online dating sites, which is a obvious way to attract weirdos I would have thought, and sending genital photos and revenge porn; so never let anyone take nude photos of you. Hacking and stealing photos of women, then charging them to have the photos taken down from a site is extortion and theft, but we read that some men were doing it until the law caught up with them. A German court has acted to order a man to delete any naked photos of his former partner because her privacy was worth more than his entitlement to his photos.

The author tells us that her morning, after checking her online accounts, includes checking the cyberstalkers and bullies to see if there's anyone else she needs to block or if there are tweets and facebook posts that are abusive. Glad I don't use twitter and facebook then. Imagine the waste of time and drain of mental energy. We move on to a paper by M.E. Kabay on deindividuation which means acting differently once you are a part of a crowd. People are more open to suggestion and can form hate mobs, on or off line. This is the origin of Gamergate in which first black women, then any women were targeted for abuse if they played online games. Then we read about a lot of male-actioned crimes and harassments, which if they were targeted at persons of colour would be called hate crimes, but went unchallenged because they targeted women. But we're told that some women joined in, perhaps to make themselves acceptable to men, perhaps just brainwashed. Men who are challenged tend to protest that their First Amendment in America gives them free speech. Since I don't live in America I know this isn't always a viable argument, and you do not have the right to falsely shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre, nor to slander someone falsely.

Later the book discusses cyberfeminism.

The author says she regularly discusses online abuse on her twitter account, and complains that one day she got two hundred mails there abusing her because of it. This seems self-fulfilling to me. I found a great deal of unpleasantness in this book. There's strong language and abusive terms quoted too. Not one for the kiddies. I thought some more positive tips on how to find safe online sites or not be stalked would have been helpful.

Pages 153 - 292 in my ARC are notes and bibliography. These appear to refer to about 50 - 50 men and women, but include pseudonyms and twitter posts. Others are newspaper journalism, websites and Harvard documents.

Violet Blue has written an in-depth and extremely helpful book for anyone worried about on-line privacy or abuse, which should be all of us. I've reviewed 'The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy' in which she explains that facebook changes their privacy settings every few months deliberately, in order to sell your data, so you have to keep checking; how to search for what information is out there about you; how to protect yourself - from taping over your webcam and phone camera, to password-protecting and backing up your files and images, to taking legal action.
You may also be interested in 'A Year Unplugged: A Family's Life Without Technology' by Sharael Kolberg.

I downloaded this book from Net Galley and this is an unbiased review.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language is pretty academic, which could be a turnoff for some, but Poland does a really thorough job of covering the information. Harassment history, impacts, costs - yes, as someone who has had to face it she has a personal motive, but still this is very organized and complete. This includes some really good ideas on methods of fighting abuse that have shown some success and other suggestions. As easy at it is to seem hopeless, there are good possibilities.

And it is still terribly frustrating knowing that there are people to whom the book would not make one bit of difference, because they are not interested in knowing or changing anything. That is not the book's fault, but the subject matter reminds you.

[Judy Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an e-ARC of this non-fiction book through NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press - Potomac Books.

Cybersexism and Cyberfeminism. If you are interested in how these two topics are impacted by the presence of women on the Internet, this is a good book to read to find the meanings, details and examples to satisfy your curiosity.

For women even casual chats with friends on the internet can be fraught with threats, profanity and events which spill over into their life outside the internet. The ability to post comments under an anonymous account name gives many the idea that they can degrade a discussion to the lowest possible level with impunity. Death threats are commonly made to women, doxing allows an unnamed person to post the most private of details about a woman and make it her responsibility to try to clean up the mess and preserve as much of her private life as humanly possible. The efforts are not always successful and the information can remain on public view to the extent of causing women to lose their jobs along with their professional standing.

I enjoyed this book more when Bailey Poland was dealing with concrete examples of the abuses she and other women have encountered. That is probably because it is so difficult to believe that anyone would be so filled with rage that they would want to harm a woman in the ways this book describes simply because she's posting her thoughts and opinions. The examples given make you put all doubt aside and believe. There are suggestions for things a woman can do to minimize the possibility she will become a target, but the reality is that the internet safety nets in place are easy to circumvent and if someone wants to make a woman's life miserable because of her gender, her looks, her race, her religion, her career, her stand on a particular issue, they can find a way to do incredible damage. The damage comes in many forms, the result of being subjected to harassment and abuse on a daily basis by simply using a medium which is supposed to be a haven for enjoyment, learning and communication . Bailey Poland has presented her case and provided the research proof to back up her statements.

If you have suffered or are suffering from any type of harassment on the internet, read this book for some suggestions for how you may be able to help your situation, and to prove to yourself that you really are not alone.

[ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

“We are the modern cunt
positive anti reason
unbounded unleashed unforgiving
we see art with our cunt we make art with our cunt
we believe in jouissance madness holiness and poetry
we are the virus of the new world disorder rupturing the symbolic from within
saboteurs of big daddy mainframe
the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix”

great info on cybersexism/cyberfeminism and brings up a lot of solid points that i haven’t seen while studying the topic

[January Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well worth the read, I'm not sure about her ideas for solutions, but still a good read.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bailey Poland is one of the smartest people I know, and this book just reinforces that belief. I've been aware to small degrees about some of the stuff she discusses in this book, but here it's laid bare, with great depth and conviction. I might have known some of the crap that goes on in the various spaces that exist online, but Poland links it all together for understanding the why and how of it all, too. Read this book.

[Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a fan of Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist Frequency) for years. Her videos on sexist themes in entertainment always make me rethink how I approach media, even if I don't agree with everything she says. Unfortunately, I also remember how I was introduced to her. Someone had posted a negative thread to /r/gaming about her Kickstarter (Tropes vs Women in Video Games) several years ago, and it made it to the front page complete with some of the most vile comments I have ever read. I don't spend time on /r/gaming anymore. Why? Because that was the day I realized I wasn't welcome, because I didn't have the ticket for entry: a penis.

This book by Bailey Poland is a compilation of issues regarding, as the title says, Harassment, Abuse and Violence online. Specifically she focus on sexism, but she does brush on many other kinds of discrimination and marginalization as well. Being a women in online spaces can be difficult to navigate, and it can be equally difficult to explain to anyone who has never experienced it. Poland has done a great job both explaining the social issues, and delving into why they are so prevalent in online spaces. There's even an entire chapter parsing the MRA movement and Gamergate which is as fascinating as it is horrific.

Personally, I didn't care for the more philosophical parts of this book. And if I can be more specific for a second, I was pretty bored during the penultimate chapter where the majority of this material was, including an entire section on feminist art that I both didn't understand and wasn't interested in. But that's just me. I am a much more fact based person, and I like seeing numbers from studies instead of theories and assumptions. It's unfortunate that there hasn't been more research into this area, but as she says, there is a growing need and interest in it from the legal community so I imagine resources will continue to grow in the coming decades.

Overall, I would really only suggest this book for those who are interested in reading about feminist theory and philosophy with a cyber slant. It can get pretty heavy, which is why it took me almost a month to get through it. There are some suggestions for solutions at the end of the book, but this is a social issue as much as it is a mechanical one. If nothing else, this is a book that makes you rethink social interaction online and the consequences of this global world we now have.

Copy courtesy of University of Nebraska Press/Potomac Books, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Suba Wijesinghe · Rating 5 out of 5]

"An Advanced Review Copy Provided by the Publisher Through NetGalley in Exchange for an Honest Review."

Firstly, I would like to recommend this book as a "MUST READ" book for everyone who use social media and internet. This research book is one of the most valuable, advisable and precious books I read after a long time. I think I'm really lucky to have it to read.
After I read this book to the end, I am totally aware about how should we use our activities on the social media, what are the risks we have to face when using internet, online harassment, sexism, how can we manage-up our online presence, what kind of matters we have to face because improper use of internet, what solutions we should have taken as a solution,etc.....
I suppose "Haters" come up as a result of the author's research done through so many years. Most of the information in this book can't be written using someone's normal imagination. It must required dedication, endeavor and researches done through many years.....

Besides that, to composition a book like this depends on the erudition of the author. So, here comes a handy, valuable and advisable "HATERS" with including true incidents about online harassment, sexism, etc... as a result of the dedication through so many years and erudition of the author.
Honestly, I'm very pleased about the reading. I gain and learn some precious experience to my life from this book. Recommend as a must read book.

[Jeff Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof get the title of their book Half the Sky from the Chinese saying, "Women hold up half the Sky." This is true in the real world as well as online. Yet, the online environment makes it extremely difficult for women to have a role. In Bailey Poland's Haters, she documents the many ways Cyber sexists harass, intimidate, and drive women off the internet.

Poland documents the innumerable techniques cyber sexists use to derail and deter women online. Doxxing, Swatting, sending offensive images, fake accounts, interrupting conversations, sealioning, the list goes on and on. There is a never ending list of threats and often very little social media companies or even the police are willing to do about it. Keep in mind, they both can do something about it, but they choose not to do anything.

The internet is no longer a space one can walk away from. Lost connections, lost business are the result of disconnecting.

What are the solutions? They are slim. Educating the population (the men to not be sexist, not just women to protect themselves). There are services that can block for you. It can block a person and block their associates. Poland does a masterful job summarizing the online world for women.



Haters

The perception of cybersexism as an ultimately meaningless activity that shouldn't be taken seriously helps disguise its effects on women and throwup a smokescreen around its causes. The deliberate nature of the decision to specifically target women with abusive online communications isintended to establish men as dominant and keep women’s participation in online spaces low, invisible, or nonexistent. Tactics used by cybersexists—such as derailing (an attempt to disrupt a conversation and refocus it in a waymore comfortable to a male participant or a man who has interrupted the conversation for that purpose), mansplaining (a tongue-in-cheek termfor a man condescendingly explaining something to a woman that sheunderstands better than he does), gendered harassment, abuse, and
threats,which will be discussed in depth in chapter 2—are all aimed at re-creating aspects of the onine world in online spaces. The goal of cybersexism is to build places in which women must either be silent or invisible, reinforce the sexist attitudes that see women’s proper role as silent and objectified, and develop an Internet where men are not challenged on their use of stereotypes or violence against women. P18

Many cybersexists add to the sense of security provided by anonymity, using multiple “burner” or “sockpuppet” accounts to harass women and engage in intimidation and abuse, then quickly shutting them down. ispractice allows them to engage in harassment without having to deal withthe effects of engaging in those behaviors onine or under their real name. Although anonymity is more difficult on websites that require identification, such as Facebook, it’s still possible for people to set up multiple fake accounts for their own use. P34

As Whitney Phillips has pointed out in an interview about online harassment, cyber-sexist abusers often use the concept of trolling “as a way of repudiating responsibilities for their own actions” by framing violent misogyny and other behaviors as nonserious or conducted in jest.52 p35

Even men who insist that they are not trolling will engage in activities that are associated with cybersexism, such as mansplaining, acting dominant in some way, and resorting to sexist stereotypes to position themselvesas the authority within the conversation. However, these conversational strategies are not the only tactics used by cybersexists to attempt to retake control of the Internet and drive women away. Threats, doxxing, hacking, and mob harassment are all strategies used by cybersexists to reinforce the unequal nature of the Internet, damage women personally and professionally, and attempt to intimidate women and minimize their presence online. P45
What “don’t feed the trolls” misses is that, for these online cybersexist abusers, it doesn’t matter whether or not a woman responds to their abuse. The payoff for these types of “trolls,” as mentioned earlier, is the ability to say horrendous things to women and never face real consequences fordoing so.P78

In the 1990s people could simply walkaway from online life if they had to; today that is no longer an option. More and more people work online, we hang out with friends online, meet loved ones, and play, write, create, and interact with individuals around the world. Most people carry an instant connection to the Internet in theirpocket. The boundaries between online life and offline life are increasingly blurred, and what happens in one space has effects in the other.Seeing abuse online doesn’t mean that the abuse has no power to a effect someone online, and merely walking away does nothing to prevent the abuse or stop it from continuing. The Internet is what we make it, and anenvironment where abuse is tolerated can no longer be acceptable. P87

Additionally, women who are small business owners are likely to be disproportionately affected by cybersexist attacks and harassment. Coordinated attacks by groups of people who leave fake negative reviews on websites such as Yelp can result in an immediate loss of business, and onlinehacking and other attacks can take down a small business website, causing lost ranking in search engines and customer dissatisfaction. Women whose careers depend on online exposure and connections are at a significant risk for losing their livelihoods over cybersexist harassment. Women who start online businesses are also much less likely to receive funding (only 15percent of companies receiving venture capital funding between 2011 and2013 had a woman on their executive team). Whether financialsupport comes from venture capital groups or from government programs aimed at minority-owned businesses, women receive less money than men do and less support for the continuation of their businesses, and they have a higher level of turnover as a result. Women begin their onlinecareers at a disadvantage, and cybersexist harassment can be the nal nail in theco n for women’s online businesses.P113

Forcing women into a perpetually reactive stance where onlineabuse is concerned gives cybersexist harassers much of the power in the interaction and places a burden on women to constantly monitor their profiles,comments, and notifications. Starting the day off by blocking harassers that appeared overnight is not an uncommon experience. Thedrawbacks of telling women to “just block” their harassers were addressed previously be sure to keep that information in mind when considering that blocking is still one of the only marginally empowering methods womenhave for dealing with abuse online.
173

Research often shows that poor representation of marginalizedgroups enhances stereotypes; increasing representation is met with resistance at first but, eventually, acceptance of parity p222


A site that rarely opens its comments and heavily moderates them when it does is much less likely to have moderators who are regularly and repeatedly exposed to abusive content, and readers coming to the site can comfortably engage with the piece without fearing they will have to read or engage with abusive or hostile voices in the comment section. P184

[mad mags · Rating 4 out of 5]

"THE PERSONAL COMPUTER IS THE POLITICAL COMPUTER"

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for discussions of sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, harassment, and death and rape threats.)

"When dealing with things like cybersexist abuse, it cannot be said often enough that there is no way to solve a problem without understanding it."

"[I]t is worth noting that nearly every technological advancement throughout history has been seen as too liberating for women— and therefore dangerous."

Like many women who dare to voice an opinion online, Bailey Poland has first-hand experience with cyber-harassment and abuse. She typically gets a few dozen abusive tweets every night; when she briefly became the latest target of Gamergate, that number jumped to several hundred. She monitors the Twitter profiles and Facebook pages of past harassers on the daily, looking for signs that another wave of abuse is imminent. She and her activist friends have a sort of informal arrangement, where they tip each other off to possible threats. Dealing with the daily onslaught of abuse is tedious, demoralizing, and exhausting - and that's kind of the point, from the harasser's perspective.

One particularly dedicated misogynist harassed Poland for over a year, periodically sending her rape and death threats via Twitter. She finally decided to file a police report - and was lucky enough to get an officer who took her concerns seriously and was reasonably knowledgeable about the internet. (Either one is rare, but both together? Like an invisible pink unicorn!) Even so, nothing came of it; the department couldn't even be bothered to keep Poland updated on its progress. And this represents a best-case scenario: the vast majority of victims don't even get this far.

But Poland didn't stop there: rather, she decided to make online harassment and abuse the topic of her first book. In Haters: Harassment, Abuse, and Violence Online, Poland explores the odious and often scary landscape of cybersexism. This encompasses not just the most egregious abuses: death and rape threats, doxxing and swatting, Gamergate and MRAs (and, now, the alt-right), but also more subtle forms of sexism and sexist microaggressions, such as mansplaining, talking over women, and dominating conversations. Even the very design of the internet - with its anything goes, Wild West type attitude - ignores women's experiences and prioritizes men's "freedom of speech" and self-expression over that of women and other marginalized groups.

Poland's discussion is thoroughly researched and wide-ranging. Among the topics of discussion: what constitutes cybersexism, and how it's largely an extension (and amplification) of the sexism women face offline; examples of online harassment, using the well-known Gamergate and Men's Rights Movement (MRA) as illustrations; the psychological, interpersonal, professional, and financial effects of harassment on victims (and, surprisingly, perpetrators); the type of advice women commonly receive about dealing with online harassment, and why it fails so spectacularly; current solutions that women can employ, as limited as they may be; and possible directions for the future, using the cyberfeminist movement of the '90s as a jumping off point.

Poland's analysis is both multifaceted and intersectional: even as she's quick to point out that she comes at this issue from a position of relative privilege (white, heterosexual, cisgender), Poland is careful to address the added abuse heaped on women who belong to two or more marginalized groups. Black women are subject to an especially pernicious blend of racism and misogyny ("misogynoir," a term coined by the queer black feminist scholar Moya Bailey); likewise, trans women deal with both misogyny and transphobia ("transmisogyny," coined by Julia Serano in Whipping Girl). That said, the book does primarily focus on the United States and U.S.-based laws re: online harassment.

While the book is well-researched and meticulously documented (23% of the ARC is endnotes), it is hampered by the dearth of studies on online harassment. Most of what does exist primarily looks at the effects of harassment on businesses and financial institutions - which should come as no surprise, since we seem to value corporations at least as much as individual people. And while there are precious few studies that address cybersexism, almost none tease out differences in race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or other axes of oppression.

Given this obstacle, Haters is all the more impressive and necessary: cybersexism, harassment, and abuse is an enormous problem with a myriad of consequences for its victims, both online and off (and really, is there any difference between the two nowadays? I suspect that the "It's just the Internet" excuse will die with my generation.). Just like sexism and gender-based violence "IRL," it's well past time we address it. Half of the population are women; we are doctors, physicists, artists, gamers, comic book creators, activists, organizers, astronauts, and politicians. Some of us are kids or teenagers or young adults who are still trying to find our way in the world. A whole lot of us are brimming with untapped potential. Imagine how much richer the world would be if our talents were nurtured and celebrated, instead of denied and quashed. Imagine how much better off humanity would be, if we acknowledged the humanity in us all.

While the topic is engaging and timely, I did sometimes find myself struggling to finish a chapter. The book has an academic feel, which I expected; while the language is a little stuffy at times, it's still fairly accessible to lay readers. (Poland dips her toes in a number of disciplines: psychology, sociology, women's studies, criminal and civil law.) Poland adopts a dispassionate, almost removed tone that may alienate some readers, but I understand the reasoning for it: tip your hand too much, and a woman risks being dismissed as an overemotional, hysterical harpy, incapable of reasoned thought. Given a choice, I prefer a fiery, passionate feminist take-down, but I could go for either or, really. There are benefits and costs to each.

But Poland does have a habit of repeating the same point, using different phrasing. Not just across chapters or even different sections in the same chapter - that I can understand - but in the same paragraph. I suppose it's for emphasis, a second attempt at convincing the skeptics out there, but I just found it drawn-out and a little tiring. Those times I struggled, I think this is 90% of the reason why. Luckily this mostly occurs in the early chapters; by the time we hit Gamergate, things really start to pick up. And I learned a ton, even though I thought myself moderately well-informed on these issues.

 

Table of Contents

1 THE MANY FACES OF CYBERSEXISM: Why Misogyny Flourishes Online 1

2 TYPES OF CYBERSEXISM: What Online Harassment Really Looks Like 35

3 DON’T FEED THE TROLLS: Why Advice about Cybersexism Fails 61

4 THE EFFECTS OF CYBERSEXISM: Professional, Psychological, and Personal 89

5 MISOGYNIST MOVEMENTS: Men’s Rights Activists and Gamergate 123

6 DEALING WITH CYBERSEXISM: Current Solutions 159

7 FIGHTING BACK: Remixing Cyberfeminism and Strategizing to Reduce Cybersexism 201

CONCLUSION: A Call to Action 251

Notes 253

Bibliography 271

Index 293

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/11/09/...

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bailey Poland's Haters: Harassment, Abuse, and Violence Online is a thorough review of a difficult and important topic that rarely receives the attention it deserves.

I expect most women on the internet will be generally familiar with a lot of the themes that Poland explores in the text, and I similarly expect that most men will be relatively unfamiliar (or at least unfamiliar as to the true scope of the problem). For this, if no other reason, I think men, in particular, could benefit from reading it (which is not, of course, to say that this is a book written to, for, or about men, as it is not).

Poland treats the entire topic (and it is quite a broad topic) as comprehensively as possible, while also taking the time to point out the limitations in the data she is using, as well as her own limitations as a researcher/writer. Her emphasis on the need for more intersectional work on these issues, for example, was (I thought) a sensible and balanced way to approach the topic- that is, she acknowledged limitations, identified areas where further research could be helpful, and intelligently handled the ways in which her own personal biases might color presentation.

The text is extensively footnoted/sourced, which is not only welcome insofar as it is good practice, but should (I expect) be a welcome buttress against any who might seek to dismiss the text as an overreaction to a non-existent problem. (I expect any reaction of that nature would be one that simply hasn't engaged with the text.)

As a side note, Poland mentions Sarah Jeong's Internet of Garbage early in the text, and comes back to it at numerous points (especially in later chapters). When she first mentioned Jeong's work, I stopped reading this and switched to Internet of Garbage before switching back. I do not think this was necessary, but I did find it helpful.

My only real complaint about this text (and it is not a significant one) is that sometimes it felt like it could've done with a bit more editing. Some of the chapters felt a little redundant in places, as if they were being written to be presented as stand-alone texts rather than as part of a larger whole. Indeed, it may be useful to have chapters that can stand on their own, but presented in a book like this it did make it feel a little longer than necessary.

That minor complaint aside, this is a very worthwhile text that has engaged with an important and extremely unpleasant topic (and its related sub-topics). Poland does a good job inserting trigger warnings/content notes for sections that are especially graphic. Readers should, however, go into this knowing that the topic is not going to be particularly pleasant.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in this topic, as well as to people who have a significant presence online. This seems like a very good starting place for people to educate themselves about this kind of issue, and Poland's extensive research and presentation of background/history make it clear the real depths of the problems she is discussing (and, of course, living).

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic and I think sets an amazing groundwork for understanding the sexist and racist undertones of a lot of cyberbullying, abuse, and harassment. I think anyone using the internet today should read it and "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things".

I'd love to see a framework for the more ubiquitous types of abusive engagement. The author touches on some of them, how harassers use certain types of tactics to silence women and people of color, but a great deal of the book focused on the most intense level of abuse. We need books on that, I'd just be excited to see more in-depth stuff to dig into and set boundaries around within communities before it gets to that level of danger and harm.

I'm glad people are looking into this.

[Beth & Luna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an okay read. All of these topics are certainly real and relevant; it just felt like the author kept repeating herself over and over. It probably could have been cut down to 100 pages. In no way was the book *bad* ... it just could have been more concise. Regardless, this is an important topic and I'm glad the book exists.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so interested in this book, but it's written like a doctoral thesis paper - VERY formal and dry. Not at all what I was expecting. I was hoping for something more like Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism, but focused more on online issues. I barely made it through the first chapter before calling it quits.

[The Reading Countess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important, well-researched. It is a statement unto itself that there is a need for this kind of information. I was disappointed in seeing that my own kind of online attacks were not mentioned, but then I remembered that my own situation is sadly, humiliatingly unique.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

for tute #6!
a lil handwavy and repetitive, but helpful initial overview of online abuse. good ones -> chs 6/7

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The online world is still an amazing, powerful and informative resource, even though its novelty is several decades old for this reviewer, yet there are many dark sides such as online harassment, bullying and sexism that plague it. Of course, society-at-large is hardly free from such activities, yet it can be more pronounced and focussed online.

This book takes an informative, focused look at the world of online harassment, abuse and violence and seeks to shed light on the issues, even though it cannot wave a magic wand and make it go away. It can be easy to write-off some of the claims of harassment and bullying as mere banter, the rough expression of contrary views or robust defence of a position, but there is often a much deeper, more insidious and quite troubling dark side that we do not necessarily see. For those who experience it however, it can be very traumatic. It can even lead to some seeking to take their own lives out of desperation.

There is a lot to take in from this book, which gathers the latest research and real world occurrences of the subject, and it does a good job in marshalling the facts, evidence and opinion into its overflowing pages. The author also presents what is said to be a “compelling method” to combat sexism online, built around her own personal experiences and that of others. One does not want to judge its efficacy, but it is hoped that it at least has some positive effect in reducing the size of the problem: if even just a few victims are no longer affected, it is going to be better than nothing!

It is a specialist subject and read that deserves wider currency, although there is a risk that many people will pass it by through no fault of the book. It could be one of those worthy titles you should take a chance on, or at least check if you can obtain this from the library and immerse yourself into something deservedly different for a couple of evenings. It is not a one-sided, hectoring read that seeks to demonise, instead it is credibly balanced, yet focussed on the subject.

As the father of a young school-age girl, this book and its repetition of various issues does not fill me with happiness or confidence, yet on the other hand it shows that there is some hope of possible change. You must seize on every glimpse of positive change; however remote it may appear at the time. Of course, men can also be harassed and bullied online, this is not in doubt, but the problem can be particularly acute for females because of their gender.

If your eyes were closed to the problems that may exist online, they will be certainly open after reading this book. You may not want to read it if you have blood pressure problems, since it may see it rise uncomfortably with disgust and rage when you learn a bit about some of the experiences people have had on the Internet, through no fault of their own.

Haters, written by Bailey Poland and published by University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9781612347660. YYYY

[Bernard O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bailey Poland has a daily routine. Each day, she wakes up, reads some news sites, checks Facebook and Twitter, checks on her blog, and prunes out any comments containing rape and death threats. She then takes a peek at the various people and groups who are regularly harass her and her friends, just to see if they're planning another attack.

Misogyny is something that has existed -- and sometimes even been celebrated -- for thousands of years, but the Internet allows men to hate women in new and exciting ways. Cybersexism is a cloud-based, peer-to-peer, always-on type of abuse. It's widespread, unavoidable, and largely ignored by both the authorities and the providers of internet services.

In Haters, Poland sets out to document the nature and consequences of cybersexism . We're taken through the mechanics of IRL sexism, from assault and harassment, to the gendered tactics men use to control conversations and keep power in male hands. She then discusses how this gender dynamic is rendered on the web, including the kind of mass anonymous harassment that social media allows. There's a long discussion of how the "don't feed the trolls" strategy doesn't work, and a look at the damage that cybersexism can do, from the psychological toll to the damage to the subject's career and reputation.

It's an emotive issue, especially for Poland, who has personal and extensive experience of cybersexism. Despite that, she takes a very formal academic tone throughout, patiently walking through her points one at a time, citing sources and slowly building an argument in the style of an academic dissertation.

And maybe the problem with the book is that it's a little too academic. There are some moments in the book, such as her brief history of GamerGate, when her frustration begins to crack through the text, and the prose simmers with anger. However, the majority is phrased like a research paper dissertation, a cold and distant observation of something far away.

Not that there's anything wrong with that - a solid academic work on cybersexism would be of great value. Poland herself admits that the hardest part about writing Haters was gathering data, because there isn't any. Online harassment is often seen as a kind of industrial byproduct of the internet, and not something in itself deserving of research.

Unfortunately, Poland doesn't really address the lack of research. There's no original information in the book, and instead she relies on quotes from other writers, and anecdotes that will be familiar to anyone who has been following recent discussions about Gamergate. There's not much in here that the reader would be unable to find with a quick Google.

She ties it up with a call to action and suggestions for how the internet can progress, which are all quite vague, and ultimately fails to offer a compelling vision of an inclusive Internet. This vagueness is emphasised somewhat by her own dogged determination to stay in her lane with regards to other axes of oppression, such as race.

I was ultimately disappointed by Haters. I had hoped for some unique insight into cybersexism, which this book doesn't contain. Also, the very title of Haters seems to promise some kind of investigation into the people who hate, but that's not what this book is.

Instead, it's a pretty straightforward introduction to the world of cybersexism that will probably interest feminists and allies who don't yet know the difference between swatting and doxxing. In Virginia Heffernan's book Magic and Loss, she says "the Internet appears to represent the world more faithfully than the technologies that preceded it." Heffernan's book is an optimistic celebration of internet art, but unfortunately her statement applies equally to the real world's violence, anger, exclusion and misogyny. Haters gonna hate, for the foreseeable future at least.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to cyberstalking and harassment and dealing with hate mobs online, “just ignore them!” doesn’t really work. Exactly how “just ignoring” bullies IRL doesn’t really work. Who would’ve thought?

I think if the majority truly cared in knowing how abuse like this works and how to intervene more effectively (and even just more interest in learning and researching how) we as a society would make more progress in social and societal equity, but alas, here we are 5+ years after gamergate and there’s still fallout left from it. (Tbf before this book my understanding of GG was very surface level and yes I am ashamed of that)

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her book, Poland ( 2016, p 218) concludes that there is a "shocking" lack of data" on the issue of "cybersexist" online abuse and, if the internet is to be a viable tool that can be used by over half of the world's population, academic journals should shift their focus from business and finance and towards a more psychosociological approach which examines the impact of cyberattacks on human lives.

Unlike many books and articles that discuss cyberbully, while addressing the issue of the male privilege which has contributed to the predominant culture of the internet, Poland acknowledges her own privilege (p 53) which exempts her from experiencing the intersectional forms of cyber-abuse experienced by women of color, women belonging to religious minorities, LGBTQ women, and women with disabilities. However, she does outline the various ways that women in these groups experience cyberattacks along "intersecting axes" in an effort to encourage others to acknowledge the varying types of online abuse (p.53). Poland also addresses the issue of women abusing other women (cats eating cats) under the guise of feminism as well as the "the distinctions of race, class, ability sexuality which are frequently used as excuses for stealing or repurposing other women's work, without permission or attribution" (p 55). This makes Poland's book particularly refreshing and credible.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could get many more people to read this. Even those who are already familiar with how violence online takes form can benefit from Poland's succinct takedowns of every argument that protects online abusers. And those who don't spend much time online or have a relatively safe online bubble (I'm thinking my parents' generation and older) would be incredibly informed after reading this book.

[JustHB · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got 15% in to this and then got bored of reading the same thing. It covers an interesting topic, but the writing is static and not fresh, so it starts becoming a slog and onerous to read. This is one of the few books that, despite having an interest in this area, I just couldn't face reading the whole thing. Shame.