"Stupid white whores spreading their legs without marriage.” “Fuck her, plow her, and get politics out of her head.” These were just two of the examples that we came across while searching the web for gender-based hate speech. We did not find them on some extremist websites, but rather on the top 10 popular portals in Poland.
The social campaign, “Nie Ma Zgody Dla Tej Mowy,” aims to provoke discussion about gender-based online hate speech by launching social media efforts in the form of videos and graphics primarily on Facebook. Our campaign aims to catalyze debate and discussion through provocation; we believe in order to insight people to care about this issue we need to take drastic action to catch public attention.
We created bold, colorful graphics that would spread throughout the web. The graphics feature texts of the very instances of hate speech found online in Poland. At the bottom of each graphic we explained the purpose of reappropriating this speech. The graphic stated: “Surprised to see this here? You can find it online everyday. End hate speech online.” By bringing these instances of hate speech that are ignored or go unreported back to the public attention, we hope to recontextualize the words to demonstrate the absurdity and violence of the hate speech that goes unreported each day.
We also took examples of sexist and misogynist comments from online into the center of Warsaw by staging a performance and interviews. The performance aimed to track how people respond when the hate speech that is often seen silently online is spoken out loud in a public space. Using a megaphone, we sought out a central location in Warsaw and screamed these examples of hate speech. After speaking these examples out loud we explained the purpose of the campaign. To our surprise, the response of the public was neutral and indifferent. The majority of people walked past without paying attention to our happening. Through this performance we became more aware of the normalization of this issue. Since we anticipated some reaction from the public, this unexpected result helped direct our campaign in a more provocative direction; we seek to provoke and bring this hate speech (silently and violently taking over the internet) into a more public forum.
We believe that bringing these instances of hate speech offline into the public sphere was an innovative way to develop a social campaign. While we have each personally experienced hate speech online, saying these phrases out loud was a very intense and thought-provoking experience. We each shared how the performance impacted us on a personal level and reminded us of how important combating this issue is. We believe feeling a personal investment in any social campaign is critical. We also think that collecting the opinions of participants and basing the direction of the campaign on their own experiences also remains an important step in any social campaign. It is essential to understand the issue before attempting to find solutions.
There still remains a lack of research and understanding of gender-based hate speech online in Poland. When reviewing different hate speech definitions available on Polish websites we found that the category of women was often excluded. According to a report by the Feminoteka Foundation, gender-based hate speech towards women “preserves gender hierarchy in the cyberspace” and “reinforces male domination by eliminating or silencing women’s voices on the Internet.” We believe freedom of speech ends when it violates another person’s human right to safety. While reporting instances of hate speech to companies is still a worthy step in combating online hate, this campaign is initiated from the conviction that more action is needed from internet users to expose the enormity of violent comments. The freedoms and opportunities provided online should be available to all. We demand more effective complaint mechanisms and laws governing hate speech online should go into effect in Poland. Attention to the marginalization of women online needs to be a priority when fighting for human rights online.
We created a Facebook page that each day presented information on hate speech through articles, reports, and other resources. By providing a forum for active Internet users to express their grievances about being victims of hate speech, we want to provide a site of empowerment, education, and solidarity. By breaking the silence around this issue, we hope to encourage the public to report and respond to instances of hate speech. We want to show to perpetrators that what they are saying online hurts and is unacceptable.
We understand that responding to each and every instance of hate speech towards women online is a large task, especially when you are the victim. Therefore, we also plan to write up potential responses for users to cut and paste into comment threads when they come across sexist or misogynist speech. This resource displaces the responsibility of eliminating the issue from the victims of hate speech online by providing everyday Internet users a fast and effective way to speak out against this violence.
We seek to change the sexist culture permeating the web that permits hate speech towards women, seeing it as somehow acceptable and normal. The anonymity of the online sphere also means that there is little accountability for perpetrators of hate speech. Yet, with the voices of many combating this issue, and each of us playing our part, we believe we can change the violent, discriminatory virtual sphere that silences so many in our communities.Using the tactic of provocation ended up being a strong campaign strategy to bring attention to an issue that many would rather ignore. We were able to use the controversial phrases as a means to draw attention to the issue and encourage Internet users to consider their role in solving this issue.
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