A letter to the editor of The Saturday Paper, published Nov 15, 2014.
In his otherwise fresh and sympathetic “Web of abuse” (November 8-14), Martin McKenzie-Murray unfortunately concludes by focusing on the ability of victims of digital hate to “[rationally] assess their threat level”. More’s the point, symbolic violence is still violent. The threat of sexual assault by men against women is inherently terrifying and damaging, whether it is carried out or not. Any attenuation of the threat of rape dehumanises all of us.
There’s a terrible double standard among cyber-libertarians. When good things happen online – such as the Arab Spring, WikiLeaks, social networking and free education – they call the internet a transformative force for good. Yet they can play down digital hate crimes as “not real”, and disown their all-powerful internet as just another communications medium.
Stephen Wilson, Five Dock, NSW.