I read your piece with mild curiosity. Just wanted to check out if you are the aggressive feminists.. Looks like you are not and that made me comparitvely comfortable.

I honestly donot think cyber stalking is really a serious issue. I agree with most women liberating measures such as anti-dowry, anti-harrasment and Eve teasing, domestic violence. What I Cant understand are the lose ones such as “he was staring at me” or “he was cyber stalking me”.

What is the crime ? Has there been a break in ? has there been a physical attack ? has there been a theft of identity and physical harrasment ?

I think this is just a trivial issue, newly empowered women flexing their muscles.

pran

The question of “free speech” v “safety” is kind of tricky. Falsely yelling “fire!” in a crowded space where there is no fire is not considered covered by free speech because the result is significant danger to those around the speaker. I consider hate speech and threats to be similar. I personally subscribe to the idea that your rights end where my nose begins, so you would not have the right to threaten me and use freedom of speech to avoid consequences for doing so.

Especially on the internet, I feel that it is more important than ever to create and maintain spaces that have standards for behavior. Anonymity makes it that much easier for bullies who may never ever say things like this in public to do so because the internet isn’t “real.” They manage to conveniently forget that there is indeed a real person on the other end of their vitriol. Basically, if they want to post their hate-filled screeds and nasty commentary, most blog platforms are free. They can just go ahead and make their own space. I treat websites as personal space that is kindly open to the public, like a store or a theatre. No one has the right to walk into a private business and use their floor as a toilet, so no one has the right to charge into someone else’s webspace and use it as a place to spew hate.

just my (longer than I anticipated) two cents.