Cyber Abuse Behaviour in Young Adults : Revenge Porn and how the Bournemouth University Community can learn from the issue.

This paper analyses the impact that victims of cyber extortion face in particularly with revenge pornography. It points out legislation available for remedial action in civil cases such as sextortion. The paper is written to help safeguard university students from online harassment and points out the channels available for reporting incidences of revenge porn.

The Prevalence of Online Violence Against Female Students at a Private University in Malawi

This chapter presents findings of the study that investigated the prevalence of online violence against female students at the University of Livingstonia in Malawi. The study noted that female students experienced online bullying, online harassment, online defamation, online stalking, sexual exploitation, online hate speech, and revenge pornography. Perpetrators used digital platforms such Facebook, WhatsApp, dating sites, and smartphones to carry out their evil acts. The motivations by perpetrators were driven by revenge, anger, jealousy, and sexual desire, with the intentions to harm the victims socially, psychologically, academically, and physically. The female students confronted and blocked the perpetrator or left the online platform as a coping mechanism. Overall, the study confirmed that the prevalence of online violence against female students is burgeoning in universities in Malawi and urgent strategies are needed to address the vice.

Tackling the emotional toll together: How journalists address harassment with connective practices

In this article, we examine how journalists address and tackle online harassment by connective practices that involve joint action with peers and editors that we find are particularly effective in addressing the emotional effects of harassment. Theoretically, we bridge community of practice research with theories of emotional labour to develop a novel perspective to examine online harassment. Drawing on 22 interviews with Finnish journalists, we find three categories of connective practices that are particularly effective in tackling harassment: (1) supportive connection between the journalist and the editor; (2) shared collegial practices among peers in the newsrooms and (3) emotional engagement among peers outside the newsroom. All three categories illustrate how journalists as a community of practice develop new practices through dynamic processes innovation, improvisation, trial and error, reciprocal learning and mutual engagement. Importantly, emotional labour forms an important dimension of these practices as the journalists jointly address and tackle the emotional effects of harassment. We posit that the effectiveness of these connective practices largely stems from their ability to provide emotional support. While addressing feelings of fear, anger and shame, these shared practices also help consolidate the newly acquired knowledge and the professional identity under attack. Finally, we offer recommendations for newsrooms and journalists on how to collectively counter harassment and develop policies to address it.

Examining the Effect of Perceived Responsibility on Online Bystander Intervention, Target Hardening, and Inaction

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analyze data from the Pew American Trends Panel ( N = 3709) to estimate the effects of respondents’ perceptions of the role different groups should play in addressing online harassment on their likelihood to engage in intervention, target hardening, or inaction in response to witnessing online harassment, conditioned upon their likelihood of having witnessed such behavior. Findings indicate that the greater role respondents believe online users should have in addressing online harassment, the more likely they are to intervene. ( b = .310). The greater role respondents believe law enforcement or elected officials should have in addressing online harassment, the less likely they are to intervene ( b = −.135 and −.072, respectively). These findings have implications for future efforts to curb online harassment through users’ crime prevention efforts.

Hate and harassment in academia: the rising concern of the online environment

Hostile online communication is a global concern. Academic research and teaching staff are among those professionals who routinely give public comments and are thus vulnerable to online attacks. This social psychological and criminological study investigated online harassment victimization among university researchers and teachers. Survey participants (N = 2,492) were university research and teaching staff members from five major universities in Finland. Victimization was assessed with a 20-item inventory. The study included a wide range of both background and general measures on well-being at work. Participants also took part in an online experiment involving a death threat targeting a colleague. Results showed that 30% of the participants reported being victims of online harassment during the prior 6 months. Victims were more often senior staff members, minority group members, and from the social sciences and humanities. Those active in traditional or social media were much more likely to be targeted. Victims reported higher psychological distress, lower generalized trust, and lower perceived social support at work than non-victims. Individuals who were targeted by a colleague from their work community reported higher post-traumatic stress disorder scores and a higher impact of perceived online harassment on their work compared to other victims. In the experimental part of the study, participants reported more anxiety when a close colleague received a death threat. Participants also recommended more countermeasures to a close colleague than to an unknown person from the same research field. Results indicate that online harassment compromises well-being at work in academia. There is an urgent need to find ways of preventing online harassment, both in workplaces and in society at large.

Online harassment in Japan: Dissecting the targeting of a female journalist

Harassment on the Internet, particularly on social media such as Twitter, has reached a level where it can, without exaggeration, be characterised as a real-world societal problem in Japan. However, studies on this phenomenon in the Japanese language environment, especially adopting a victim-centric perspective, are rare. In this paper, we incorporated the concept of online harassment and reviewed existing studies about online harassment from Japan and abroad. We then conducted a detailed case analysis of the “flaming” of a female journalist and those who targeted her on Twitter. Based on our analysis, we observed that there were three layers of users who targeted the journalist: influencers, users who responded to the instigation by influencers, and trolls. Each harassed the journalist, but in a different manner. Given Japan’s particular difficulty of imposing domestic regulations on social media companies that are mostly from abroad, we propose and describe possible measures that individuals and their employers should consider taking.

Feminism, Privacy, and Law in Cyberspace

Feminism has long centered on breaking down the public and private divide that traditionally organized social relations and subordinated women. Privacy is lauded for giving women space for self-determination, but it is also criticized for creating spaces where patriarchy and misogyny can flourish unchecked. Cyberspace heightens the stakes of this tension because it creates almost limitless access to people’s personal data. We live in a datafied society powered by digital profiling, automated decisionmaking, and surveillance systems in which we no longer control our personal data; rather, it is used to control us. Women face multiple, gendered harms in cyberspace, including online harassment, digital discrimination, and sexual surveillance by the “femtech” industry. Yet the United States lacks comprehensive privacy laws, and its analog-era antidiscrimination statutes are no match for the digital world. American privacy protections hinge upon a notice-and-consent regime that puts the onus on users to protect their privacy rather than the entities that benefit from gathering individual’s personal data. Women and other marginalized people have suffered through a loss of privacy in the digital age, but activists have made efforts to ameliorate the harms of cyberspace and to shape privacy norms in a feminist and inclusive manner. It is important to understand the meaning of privacy through four waves of feminist theorizing and activism, to analyze how American privacy law responds to major gender equity challenges in cyberspace, and to examine current feminist theories and models of resistance.

Global Evidence on the Prevalence and Impact of Online Gender-based Violence (OGBV)

This rapid review updates a previous report (Fraser and Martineau-Searle, 2018) with evidence from 2018 onwards. It finds an evidence base on online gender-based violence (OGBV) covering a wider range of countries than the previous report. Some key findings on the nature and prevalence of OGBV include: The most recent surveys show a prevalence of OGBV ranging from 16% to 58%; Men and boys also experience online abuse in high numbers, but it is less likely to be gender-based; Several studies from different countries identify Facebook as the top location for incidents of OGBV; Higher levels of online harassment and abuse are faced by people with intersecting inequality factors; According to victim-survivors, perpetrators are more likely to be unknown and acting alone, but large numbers are known to the victims. Perpetrators themselves report divergent, multifaceted and often over-lapping motivations for their actions; Analysis of underlying drivers of OGBV highlights an overarching theme of power and control, and heteronormative expectations around gender roles and sexual practice. Many authors recommend that OGBV be understood as part of a continuum of abuse where normalised behaviours, such as sexual harassment in public spaces, shade into behaviours widely recognized as criminal, such as physical assault. The societal impact of OGBV includes: Media freedom is compromised; Democracy being undermined; Economic losses resulting from lost productivity; A ‘climate of unsafety’ prevails. Evidence base: The number of surveys about self-reported experiences with online harassment has increased rapidly. The majority of the research found during the course of this rapid review came from international and domestic non-governmental organisations and think-tanks. Academic research studies were also found, including several literature reviews.