In the space of a few days, an in-depth study by the Conseil du statut de la femme and a survey revealing the To have to have made it possible to document the deleterious impacts of uninhibited speech until it becomes hateful. The first on women, the second on politicians. In April, a Quebec study did the same for journalists who, because of their profession, are dispatched to a virtual front line now without borders. Sometimes insidious, sometimes frontal, this hatred has paradoxically never seemed so… ordinary.
Because ordinary hatred, contrary to what its adjective suggests, is not banal hatred. Even if it is often mediocre or vulgar, it is not these two meanings that prevail in the first place here either. Ordinary hatred, that which is pointed out, is that which conforms to the usual order of things. A hatred that has become so customary, in fact, that it no longer surprises anyone as long as we have collectively integrated its fatality.
It is still difficult to properly name this violence which falsely drapes itself in the sacrosanct garments of freedom of expression. We persist, however, because naming is the basis. A whole vocabulary has thus flourished on the muddy soils of the Internet, some still waiting for a French translation worthy of the name: doxingcyberstalking, sextortion, trolling, slut shaming, gaslighting (or cognitive diversion), etc. Still, by dint of reading hateful content (even broadcasting it on certain evenings of bewilderment), we have lost the reflex to be indignant. Imagine reporting it…
It does not take more for hatred to take its ease. The pandemic has been said to have greatly fueled anathemas online. But our sounding of federal parliamentarians shows that an additional line has been crossed. The threats against elected officials, which were already swarming on social networks, are now transposed into reality, writes our parliamentary correspondent Marie Vastel. Almost all of them, more than four out of five of the elected officials consulted, report having been the target of verbal or physical threats.
Some confirm having equipped themselves with the “panic button” offered to them since December. Others say that they now take care to vary their route, and a handful have chosen to move. With Quebec preparing to enter the election campaign, these data are cause for concern. At Sun, last month, Elections Quebec said it was “concerned” about hate speech and misinformation, as electoral laws cannot prevent a candidate or party from using shamelessly to register. Changing the electoral law could become more pressing than you think.
Especially since by dint of crunching the politician at breakfast, several conscripts choose to pass their turn, scalded by the ambient toxicity. Last April, the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Dominique Anglade, denounced unequal treatment which, in her opinion, weighs more heavily on women. Unsurprisingly, this outing had earned him a vitriolic welcome. However, it is completely consistent with the damning findings of the study Online hostility towards women.
While online incivility and harassment spare no one, this exhaustive study of more than a hundred pages confirms that women are more likely to bear the brunt of it. They also pay a heavier price. Especially those who come from minority social groups, but also more broadly those who speak publicly in the media. This includes female politicians.
An analysis of more than 350,000 tweets found that among candidates for the 2021 Canadian federal election, female incumbents were five times more likely to receive toxic tweets than their male counterparts. Even between them, disparities are noted. An analysis of more than 900,000 tweets sent to 177 female MPs in the UK showed that black and Asian women received 35% more offensive tweets than white women.
We denounced the insufficiency of resources allocated to moderation and the imperfection of arbitration. If there is still space to multiply the first and improve the second, it must be admitted that mopping the floor has its limits, even with a legal ally who would be strengthened. The Web has grown so sprawling that sanitizing it would make cleaning out the stables of Augeans seem like a cakewalk.
In Ottawa, the experts appointed by the Trudeau government to define the limits of its plan to fight online hate have again asked for time, unable to agree on how to tackle misinformation, which serves fuel for this violence. In the meantime, let’s already stop minimizing online abuse, let’s denormalize it, and above all let’s admit that its specific character towards certain groups, first and foremost women, exists.