The fact that it was a post about misogyny that sparked it was probably just incidental. It's the fact that she demonstrated sensitivity to language and had an online presence made her the perfect target for such an attack.
Mainly because the most that these kids can do in a raid is posting offensive things on web sites.
If you want to see how pervasive the problem is, there's a subreddit called ShitRedditSays which records horrible (and highly upvoted) submissions and comments. This is a real problem with real attitudes.
Edit: Ah yes, I should have known that mentioning SRS would garner such a reaction... people really don't seem to like being called out on their crappiness.
Edit: It doesn't exist in my post history anymore, so I'm pretty sure that entire thread was purged.
[1]http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=346...
I feel this is important because I've used Reddit for years and I don't think it's fair to associate them with child porn, because they have never tolerated child porn.
/r/SRS is a really bad example to bring up, given that 95%+ of the stuff they post is just hypersensitive whining about politically incorrect jokes or obvious trolling. Normal people don't care about politically incorrect jokes. The 5% that are actual bad posts are almost always in the negatives, not "highly upvoted".
Regarding them not being highly upvoted, are you kidding me? There is serious crap that is both highly upvoted and discussed. It's terrible.
As for the content of that subreddit, go look for yourself. Current front page:
1. Obvious joke 2. Pretending it isn't possible for women to be privileged 3. Being offended at the notion that teenage girls are attractive 4. Obvious joke 5. Being angry at finding a woman attractive 6. Obvious joke
I think the pattern is pretty obvious here.
You could say much harsher things about people watching horror movies in theaters.
Second, SRS is... well. SRS is actually kind of a good example of that problem: it started out as a bunch of guys parodying (among other things) stereotypes of radical feminism for the lulz, and then picked up some people who went along because they took the posts seriously and as a sign that it was OK, and also picked up some true believers. Now it's impossible to tell those groups apart, and it's mostly just as shitty as everything else these days.
SRS parodies how feminists are usually portrayed by others – that doesn’t mean they think the vile shit linked there really isn’t shitty. How can you not understand that?
"I'm not a violently hateful person but I act like one, and that's the joke" is not something that helps; it's something that makes problems worse. And I certainly "get it" enough to know that if I said that there I'd receive a response of "LOL TONE ARGUMENT BENNED!!!11one", which just kinda proves the point in my original comment, y'know?
In all seriousness, if people want to do good and fight evil, donate to/volunteer at a shelter. SRS is, at best, the equivalent of a yellow-ribbon bumper sticker, and accomplishes about as much as those do. And at its worst, it's people who either are in need of or are pretending to be in need of a whole lot of counseling.
The point of SRS is not to change the world, it’s to have a place where you can laugh at idiots and have no one spoil that fun. And that’s perfectly alright.
These two sentences do not go together.
It’s like a tumblr making fun of fundamentalist christian screeds. It’s not intended to convince any fundamentalists that they are wrong, but it’s a place to vent and laugh together with like-minded people.
If "no-one understands" a typical SRS'er, why do they have I-don't-even-know-how-many-now subreddits with healthy numbers?
If it exists solely for the purpose of venting (not a downvote brigade, wink wink, don't touch the poop!) and not for accomplishing anything else, then why do SRS'ers so often seem to be charging into other parts of reddit and getting into such dramatic arguments?
Finally, if you really just want a place to make fun of stupid crap? Try /r/worstof or /r/subredditdrama, both of which actually do that.
http://breakfastcookie.tumblr.com/post/26879625651/so-a-girl...
As to rape jokes, I think George Carlin said it best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FsfLPohZ_c
Yes, I have some insight, I believe, into the responses she received. There is an internet culture which violates taboos and cultural sensitivities in the most shocking way possible. This culture is rooted in centers like 4chan, somethingawful, ebaumsworld, etc. It is very much "trolling".
The goal is to spark the outrage. Mission accomplished. It is a mistake to think that the ideas they express are deeply held. Rather than reflecting the personal beliefs of the troll, they are calculated to attack sensitivities. The exact nature of the sensitivity is a reflection of the victim and not the perpetrators.
This is explicitly not blaming the victim. The point is, it would be misleading to extrapolate a targeted campaign to make one person feel bad, in terms of that to which she is most sensitive, to society at large.
If she were a minority in some other respect, or had a physical disfigurement, or she had expressed some other sensitivity, it is my belief that the internet trolls would choose the most shocking violations of that other sensitivity to send her way. If I am correct, and you want to extrapolate this behavior to a larger society, focus on the aspect of "trolling" and not the specific manner in which this troll was executed. It's my belief that there is no there there.
Or it is her fault because she "demonstrated sensitivity"?
Sad that someone on HN would post this as honest analysis. No wonder this community has so few women participants. I wonder what percentage of the commenters in this thread are male.
But if you read my comment, I'm just analyzing the motives of the raiders. The point being, it takes very little to spark them as we've seen this same type of thing happen a hundred times in the past over petty things.
I don't think it is helpful to gloss over the legitamately serious issue of outsized misogyny and threats against women with a presense on the internet. I think it is likely that this sort of behavior inhibits female contributors to open source software and the tech world.
a) misogyny of the gaming community b) the online raiding culture that has little regard for who the target is - as long as they will react to offensive language and accessible via online channels
Which was the thesis of my original comment and, I believe, a valid question to ask before taking out our pitchforks.
I've seen 4chan trolling before, but this is a very different beast. 4chan tries to get your goat, and will resort to any level of childishness to do it. But it's all done in order to make the person look foolish and laugh at them. These attacks, on the other hand, were filled with bile and hate and uncontrolled rage. Death threats are no laughing matter.
Note that this is not necessarily the misogyny of the gaming community, but rather of the much wider demographic who encounter her writings. That is far more troubling.
It's akin to blaming a woman for getting raped, because "she shouldn't have been wearing that outfit".
It doesn't matter that it takes very little to spark them. It's a terrible thing that people behave this way, and the fault lies solely on those who behave in this manner.
You comments are demonstrating perfectly the pervasiveness of the problem.
These people find pleasure in harassing people, pure and simple. The fact she's a woman doesn't matter much - it's just the particular flavor of the attack. They'd be just as happy to go after any other obviously sensitive group of people (race, religion, gender, sexuality, emotional teens on youtube, etc). Ultimately, if we want to address these attacks, then that's the problem that needs to be fixed.