Online Harassment: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

The internet is a place where you can see amazing things like glamorous shots of angora bunny cats or even these rare heartbreaking images of a wounded WWI soldier returning home to his pregnant wife new idiots I got you so good I got you so good Internet It's been blowing us away with its power and convenience for decades, as you can see in these real AOL ads from the '90s. Hi Dan, ready to game. I'm finishing up here with my new kayaking friends. Kayaking friends on your computer. Yeah I just got America

online

sounds great listen I can't go to the game today I have to send something for my mom's birthday it's tomorrow so I'm booking plane tickets for our trip next

week

and my kids have to go to the library to look for dinosaurs hey, we can take care of all that before we leave Yeah, sure Oh, with America Online wait, let me get this right, your mom's birthday is tomorrow, your trip is next

week

and you're just planning both now forget the AOL tutorial, let's talk about basic responsibilities here, Dad, you're a parent, but what's the act as the ad goes on to point out that the Internet was going to fix everything?

Call now for ten free hours of USA

online

and get instant access to the worlds of sports, finance, computing and entertainment, here come the dinosaurs, I saved you a trip, the library, that's cool, yeah , Laurie it's easy too you know I can even send emails over the internet of course it's my favorite live chat that's how I met my new kayak friends okay okay now I'm pretty sure that kayaking friends is an understatement. I'm not saying you won't meet your new friends in a shed by a lake. I'm just saying there won't be a kayak. Although that announcement was surprisingly 20 years ago and the Internet has become an integral part of modern life, unfortunately it has also become a haven for

harassment

and I'm not talking about the everyday abuse on the Internet of which I am more than aware.

Look at our YouTube page and you'll see comments like this, guys are dumb, I don't know why but I always pictured John Oliver as a puffin and I look at his hands, his fingers are like creepy spider lives, which is ridiculous because I'm not talking about that. talking about the kind of direct threats that can make people fear for their safety and if you're thinking, come on, that doesn't seem like that big of a deal, congratulations on your white penis because if you have one of those you're probably going to have a very different experience of the Internet , women in particular can receive a veritable cornucopia of horrible messages online, just listen to a female video game, we're discussing one of them, all the colorful threats you've seen, I think that's the one that always comes to mind. it's uh I'm going to stick an egg up your vaginal canal and I'm going to hit it, it's touching, it's a fun and touching fact for you, I'm going to stick an egg up your vaginal canal and I'm going to hit it, it was actually the original title of Eat.

Pray, love like this and that threat was comparatively mild, others can be chillingly specific and potentially dangerous. Hear how these women were treated when they spoke out against what they saw as sexism in the video game industry. I am constantly aware of the fact that there is an enormous amount of hate directed towards me hate in the form of bomb threats rape threats even death threats I was told they would come to kill me when someone posts or goes on the internet and they tell you that murder of your entire family you really don't feel safe staying in that place, yeah, no, I wouldn't blame her for not feeling safe staying on Earth for the record, if someone did that to me I would take you straight to the International Space Station right away, except Who am I kidding? never let me in I have spiders for hands the internet is bad look this doesn't just affect women in video games it can potentially affect any woman who makes the mistake of having a thought in her mind and then vocalizing it online for many women . writers and public figures this daily

harassment

is her life earlier this year writer Amanda Hess detailed her experience the threats were obviously distressing it was an anonymous person on Twitter threatening to come to my house to rape me to cut off my head and in case you think he is exaggerating here are some of the tweets he refers to happy to say we live in the same state I am looking for you and when I find you I will rape you and take your head and I am 36 years old I served 12 years for involuntary manslaughter.

I killed a woman like you who decided to make fun of boys, which is horrible for many reasons. First she put homicide in quotes as if she still didn't believe it was a crime and she also put her age. like she's writing the world's worst OkCupid profile. I `m 36 years old. I have killed before. I have a rather strangely shaped penis. The thing is, when Amanda Hess went to the police, she quickly discovered how ill-equipped they can be to deal. With this kind of thing in my home state of California, it is a crime to threaten bodily harm to another person when I received my most recent attack of threats, the police officer who came to my door said he didn't even understand what Twitter was.

I have no idea how to investigate a crime like that and I'm not even sure I knew it was a crime so it's hard to know what to do when you find yourself in that situation, that's a problem because the police can't investigate the crime if they really I don't understand the medium in which it happened if someone tried to drown you, you don't want the police to say, I have the attempted murders, but what is that water thing you keep pulling out? It's like air, but a little more strangulating, that's what it is, and not only are we threatened and harassed online, the Internet has created a whole new way to ruin their lives.

It's called revenge porn, maybe you've heard of it. It's when naked photos of people are posted online without their consent and it can be devastating, this is Anne-Marie Chiarini, an English teacher who let her then-boyfriend take some private photos of her. Now, after they broke up, she sent them to her employer and her son's kindergarten teacher and then this happened. I received an anonymous email at work. that a profile of me had been created, someone was pretending to be me and there were nude photos on this profile, so I googled my name and the porn website xhampster came up and there was my first and

last

name, the name of the university where I show the city where I live and a request for sex now that obviously sounds like a nightmare and unfortunately the horror of that situation took her to some pretty dark places my real thoughts were this was mine this is my life this will never end so I need to end it my life because I couldn't live like that so after finding the profile I tried to commit suicide, now you would assume it's illegal to do that to someone, the problem is there is no federal law specifically against revenge porn and in Maryland where she lived that revenge porn wasn't illegal at the time, in fact only 23 states have passed laws specifically against revenge porn, in the other twenty-seven it's one of those things that should be explicitly illegal, but it's not like using an umbrella golfing in Manhattan or returning from a semester abroad in Spain and insisting on calling it Barcelona you are the worst, the worst, the point is that if you are a victim of revenge porn in one of those 27 states, your options are limited, you can try to pursue harassment or stalking charges but those laws may not always apply or you can file a civil suit against the person who did it but as a tyranny noorie found out he faces an uphill battle I went to lawyers in 2010 to handle this civilly and the first one said Well, you know you should really get better boyfriends.

I will not accept this case. The second one I approached said, "Well, it's going to be a $5,000 retainer up front and this could be anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand when it's all said and done. I'm single." mother of two I have two jobs I don't have $5,000 it doesn't matter 15 yes of course not because most people don't keep a shoebox full of money marked in case a total hunk tries to ruin my life no you . You could ask the website to remove the photos if you own the copyright, but if they refuse, winning your lawsuit could mean doing something absolutely mind-blowing.

You can sue, but to do so you must register copyright, which brings us the cold shoulder. The hard truth, in the most extreme case, you must send photographs of your naked body to the Copyright Office which is in Washington. Yes, to prevent strangers from seeing photos of their naked body, some women have had to send more photos of their naked body to more strangers. They are one step away from trying to protect our children in the future by tattooing the copyright symbol on their genitals at birth. look just to be sure, let's take her to Vipers ink Shack, we don't know what kind of person could end up finding this.

The situation is crazy and, as one expert discovered, the official response to the victims ranges from offensive to ridiculous. I have interviewed 60 victims of online harassment, what they are often told is to see if it is revenge when they shared photos with their ex, he is the owner now. like I'm sorry I trusted the person, but it's kinda your fault right, or they tell them to look if it's just harassment, in general like turn off your computer, ignore it, it'll go away, but turning off your computer just isn't practical, almost everyone jobs require it. Internet right now somewhere in the world there is a yak herder asking why Wi-Fi is so slow.

I'll herd these yaks after lunch and that whole feeling of clearly blaming the victims if you didn't want this to happen. you shouldn't have taken pictures, it's built into mainstream culture, just look at how the news talks about this every time the best way to avoid this problem comes up, experts say don't take pictures and then share them. I think the teaching moment and the conclusion is you just can't take these pictures, you know what? Don't take negatives: One of the solutions has promised not to take naked photos of you. Okay, we said that's a good point, kids not taking naked pictures of themselves and putting them on the internet is going to come up at some point and what if it doesn't come up until you're a parent and then you're sorry?

Are you talking about stopping taking pictures? It doesn't always work. Sometimes these photos come from hacked webcams, but regardless of that, it doesn't matter how it happens because here's a fun game, insert any other crime into those same sentences, listen guys, if you don't want to get robbed, don't live in a house If you are parents, how are you going to explain this theft to your children? I'm well aware that asking authorities to police speech is a risky proposition, no one wants them checking message boards for violent language, but if a woman comes forward to the police. station says someone threatened his life on Twitter the answer is that Twitter is woefully inadequate and as for revenge porn we are going to need some new laws, unfortunately there are plans to introduce a bill in Congress called the Human Rights Protection Act Intimate Privacy aims to address non-consensual pornography and we have obtained an exclusive video of a representative with a truly moving speech about balancing First Amendment rights and protecting victims.

I have them again, they are a bunch of idiots, then the king of jokes, yes, if this law were passed as written. make it a crime to post revenge porn and don't worry, it would still leave us with plenty of internet porn to go on and also the law would create exceptions for genuine public interest, meaning that if, for example, a public figure like Anthony Weiner texts an active penis, we could all still enjoy that story, not being able to enjoy it wouldn't be a danger, although the truth is the law can only do so much, companies need to be much more diligent in taking action drastic measures against this and little by little they are doing it.

In recent months, Twitter and Reddit have banned revenge porn from their sites and this Friday Google finally announced, after much insistence, that it would remove revenge porn photos from search results upon request and for Google to do that is nothing because we all know it isn't. Even vengeful perverts will use Bing, they won't, they won't even come close to that thing, they're not monsters and for the rest of us, it all comes down to us and fundamentally changing the way we think about the internet, because too. You often hear people downplay the dangers of the Internet by saying, well, relax, it's not real life, but it is, and it's always been the point of those AOL ads 20 years ago was that what you were doing online would affect your life immediately today.

You can click a button and buy a book, meet your spouse, or ruin someone's life. Sometimes those

last

two are the same click, but we all know that the Internet is a toolincredible, but like most tools, it can be used as a weapon and we have allowed it. things to get to a place where women can fear for their lives because of something they said online and find themselves mailing their genitals to Washington to maintain their privacy and maybe we would have addressed this sooner if only those AOL ads had been gone. seen like this. This every day the Internet makes it easier for people to live, work and play.

Hi Dan, ready to game. I'm finishing up here with my new kayak friends. Wow, that's a very specific thing to say. Listen, I won't be able to. to play the game

tonight

oh why, well I have to go out on the street and scream obscenities at women I don't even know and after that they helped me write letters to all the Golden Girls telling them I'm going for their throats and then That's why I had to take these naked pictures of my ex-wife to her office and show them to everyone she works with because she's so hot, it'll take me hours, hey, we can do all that.

Before we go, you know, you know, with Internet, look, it's easy. Look, here's a random woman from Minneapolis who just said how she felt about something. You want me to make him fear for her life. Why not? But how was she made? Amazing, what else can this do? For women, with the Internet, the only limit to how miserable you can make another human being is how angry you are and how fast you can type. Hey, what's up with those pictures of my ex-wife? Oh, that's my favorite part, all you have to do is scan them on this site and then people will be able to see it instantly your boss for friends for parents everyone everyone everyone everyone everyone and this is legal, there is no federal law explicitly in Against this, that seems crazy, doesn't it?

Yes, it really is anyway, come on. I'm going to be late to the game. I can't wait later. I'm going with some of my new kayak buddies. A dark carnival of humanity's most miserable impulses. Oh, the fourth was not a good guess.