Wednesday, May 25, 2016

No Respect

Some communities online are not accepting of female characters. Due to this some females may choose to switch their gender online because they do not want to be subjected to harassing comments. It is completely understandable that anyone would want to avoid this kind of nonsense. However, they recently published a story regarding whether or not a man’s post online was violating his First Amendment rights even though he was being inappropriate with nasty comments to his gamer ex-girlfriend.

After reading John R. Ellement’s article I was a bit shocked to hear the outcome of this huge predicament. It was upsetting to hear that the restraining order put out towards him was ineffective and caused more harm. Although his free speech rights were being violated since he was not allowed to make posts during this whole thing was going on I don’t think it is okay for anyone to be harassed online. Individuals online feel like their character is an extension of themselves and when this type of thing happens it is violating the norms and codes of an online community. No one should be subjected to this, and it was very inappropriate. 


We know that these types of comments even through online communication can be traumatizing, so I was wondering how you guys would feel or react in this situation? Also, what do you think the outcome or punishment for Gjoni should be? 



1 comment:

  1. As a female gamer, I definitely feel that this was awful. I think that since the video game world is primarily made up of males there is still a mentality that girls "shouldn't design video games or don't play video games". This isn't fair to say, gender definitely should not matter when it comes to playing or designing video games. I just don't see how harassing someone online could be considered "free speech" when society is working so hard on ending cyber bullying. I am sad to hear that her attempts to get away from her harasser only caused her more harm, especially in a community that she enjoyed being a part of.

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