Holly
Dustin, director of End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) said: "Rape threats online should be
treated with the same seriousness as if they happened in the street or on the
bus. They need to treat abuse online in the same way as they do offline."
The call for
action comes in the same week as two people were charged with improper use of a
communications network on
allegations of abusive
tweets to Caroline Criado-Perez this summer. The campaigner, who led calls for
Jane Austen's portrait to be featured on a banknote, said the experience of
abuse had left her "emotionally and psychologically scarred", scared
to open email or look at her mentions on Twitter.
She is also to make an official complaint
about the Crown Prosecution
Service's handling of the case after it released details of the charges to
the press before alerting her to the abuse. Speaking to the Guardian, she said
the CPS did not seem to realise that any renewed interest in the case could
trigger more abuse online. The Labour MP Stella Creasy, who has also been
subject to abuse online, tweeted her outrage over the lack of notice.
EVAW published its report, New Technology,
Same Old Problems, in association with the Guardian after a round table of 20
lawyers, academics, support workers and journalists was convened to discuss the
issue of the online abuse of women. The discussion ranged from rape threats
sent to high-profile women such as Professor Mary Beard to sexist bullying and harassment of
teenagers on sites such as ask.fm and Facebook to the distribution of
pornography through web chatrooms and messaging.
The report
also demands that the government places an obligation on all schools to teach
respectful and consensual relationships, whether offline or online, and for the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport to set up an advisory group on sexism
in the media.
Dustin said the abuse and naming on Twitter
of a rape victim following the conviction of the footballer Ched Evans in 2012
showed her how much work needed to be done to get the police to understand the
severity of the crime. "I called the police in
North Wales and they said: "Why are you calling us and not
Twitter?'". It is a criminal offence to identify a rape victim and no
media site would be able to do such a thing.
The report
also calls on social media firms to review their terms and conditions to ensure
they outlaw harassment and abuse. Following a spate of cases in which young
women and girls fall victim to former partners sharing intimate pictures
online, EVAW also wants the companies to commit to removing any intimate photo
from a site when a subject requests even when the image was originally taken
with consent. Such calls has typically come up against US companies which fear
infringing on freedom of expression. But campaigners argue that women are being
silenced through abuse.
Dustin said
social media has provided a new platform to campaign against abuse, including
campaigns on "everydaysexism" and against sexism and racism in music
videos at the same time as "creating a new space for the same old
abuse".
She added:
"This abuse is real and threatening, and is circulated and duplicated far
more quickly because of new technology. The government and the companies who
provide those spaces have responsibility to prevent this. The police and
prosecution must urgently respond to abuse online, and we must ensure that
schools talk to young people about these issues, as well as ensuring specialist
support for survivors."
Campaigners
also want each police force area to publish data on their rate of prosecutions
and convictions for offences involving social media and for schools and for
schools to teach relationships as part of sex education.
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