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"Want to play? Send a nude photo": The dark side of the gaming world in Israel

Many advanced women in the field, previously controlled by men, compete in groups and manage brands. Alongside the success, however, they have to deal with curses, harassment and even threats of rape under the auspices of anonymity. "It's a secret that everyone knows, but does not talk about"

• Gaming
• Sexual harassment

Mikey Levy

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Humiliation, cursing and sexual harassment - all of these are part of the dark side of the online gaming world, to which women around the world and in Israel are exposed. Many of them report that during the games themselves, they are forced to endure severe insults on the basis of gender and sometimes even threats of rape.

The online gaming industry, which allows for multiple participants from around the world, has developed in recent years into a billion-dollar industry. In the world and in Israel, professional teams are established that sometimes even enjoy commercial sponsorships, similar to professional sports. However the nature of the games, which allows for audio conversations between the distant players, creates an atmosphere that encourages harsh utterances while hiding behind the keyboard.

In Israel and around the world, harassment indictments have not yet been filed in the world of computer games, but in the world you can find quite a bit of evidence of harassment by well-known players, who broadcast while playing (streamers) like SayNoToRage, which was previously reported to have been attacked and harassed by five women. The actor, who has a huge audience of 41,000 followers, posted an apology on YouTube and his Twitter page, which received 147,000 views.

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"'I will come and rape you,' that is the standard today unfortunately." Liron Afriat (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

Similar to abroad, in Israel, too, there is accumulating evidence of harassment by women against women. "I felt terrible. "Threats, and things like 'I'll come and rape you' and that's the standard today unfortunately."

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Analyst firm Mordorintelligence estimates that in 2020 the gaming world brought in about $ 165.4 billion and by 2025 it is expected to grow by about 9% per year to a value of about $ 256.97 billion. These are huge sums of money, which cause huge companies like Logitech, Razer, SteelSeries to gamble on the gaming world and launch auxiliary products at a dizzying pace.

In the world and in Israel, real teams have been united, which receive sponsorships from huge companies, similar to football teams. For many, it is a livelihood and a full-time job, earning a living from YouTube commercials and competitions like the one in the Fortnight game, where you can win millions of dollars.

Rising power in the gaming world

In the gaming world there are two types of games: online and offline. In online mode, you can play together or against players from all over the world in order to defeat each other, the competing team or perform a complex task. In doing so, the online mode exposes the player to people from around the world. In offline mode, which is conducted independently of an internet connection, it is a player who plays according to the plot and rules of the game, being disconnected from the outside world and advancing in the pace of the game.

Danny-Lee Zisser, an IGN reporter and gamer, claimed that in the past year there has been a positive attitude towards women in the gaming world, but this is accompanied by difficulties. "It's not that there is an anti towards us, but sometimes it's hard to get women in the field," she said. On the harassment she said that "you don't see it much, but just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist".

However, she does not shy away. "The women at the end are the ones pulling the strings in the field and I sit in meetings and I feel like it's really 50-50," she said. "Quite a few women run gaming brands, and when I go into a meeting and see a woman, it amazes me because it makes me feel more comfortable expressing myself, and I feel understood. Everything is more fun and relaxed, and just feels less competitive. So behind the scenes it's just like that."

"The women at the end are the ones pulling the strings in the field." Danny-Lee Zisser (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"I think even in the last six months, during the Corona, I've had fun watching girls go out to the gaming communities, and Israel has not been in that situation before," Zisser continued. "We at IGN also have a huge increase in women aged 35-24 which is crazy. Because at the end of the day, it's okay to be a gamer. It's a lot of fun to watch it, the community is more accepting, more accommodating. Suddenly I have girls I can talk to About gaming in a free way. "

"Retarded whore." A blatant correspondence received by a gamer

Reut Arie is one of the oldest and best-known gamers in Israel. "I'm a gamer from a very young age, I play computer games from the age of 5-4," she said. "During my life a friend of the family exposed me to a game of Call of Duty online, and I would play alone for a good few years. I did not know there was such a thing as 'organized groups' of players who knew each other, until one day an eight-year-old boy cursed at the game. "I reacted back. One of the players who was there heard that I was a girl, and came to me on Facebook. He wrote that he would be happy if I joined to play with his friends. From there I got to the whole competitive issue."

Arieh also had to absorb harsh statements. "My first experience was not good when I joined Team Speak (a platform for sharing voice calls - ML) when I first entered public communities, it was difficult," she said.

"For the first time, the things that wished for me and my mother were terrible. There was a friend with me and to my delight he 'got in' with everyone and quite made me go back there. That was 12 years ago. Over time, they got to know me in the community, saw that I was a very high level actress, also because of the knowledge in hardware. I continued to be active in spite of everything and to ignore, fight or go out on the right people, "Arieh added.

"There should be acceptance here of female gaming, equal rights." Aria (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"Many turn to me after they have been harassed, such as: 'Go to the kitchen, what are you doing here? Want to play with us? Send nude photos.' These are things that are difficult, and make no mistake - some girls do it to be part of the group and it's awful," Arieh explained . "The harassment is severe: from 'undressing', to more harsh words. In the past women were not accepted as gamers, and in my first competition a few years ago, I was not put on stage. I was told to sit in the audience. There should be acceptance here of female gaming, equal rights." .

According to Arie, she generally expected harassment from Israeli actors. "After almost 15 years of being very active in the Israeli gaming community, today I am known and dealt with less, but I am also a streamer and I more appeal to audiences who are from abroad, so I automatically thought and expected that if they bothered me then most people from abroad and not from Israel. "I have a folder called 'Harassment' on the computer and 99.9% of those there are Israelis. Except for one of them who is a minor, they are all adults."

Disturbing correspondence received by a gamer

"I had an incident two months ago that I was called in the middle of the night 30 times until I answered," Arieh recalled. "They knew exactly how to get my attention at 2:00 at night and touched the sensitive points. I reached for the computer and realized they were arguing about me. They talked about the tit and what they would do to me. My friend got out of bed and within an hour and a half we had the names. I always find the The one who bothers me. "

How do you get to those people who are bothering you?

"The harassers use social media for their real name, or their account is linked to a YouTube or Facebook account. It's detective work, but within an hour or two you get to them. When they realize I know who they are, they start to get stressed and it happened more than once." Said Aria. "I had a case where someone from abroad harassed me for four months, and prepared over 1,000 different users. Flooded my broadcast, every person I hosted, he thresholds there. He wrote homophobic things, racist and very harsh things, and that he would find my village and he would burn me down. "

After they realize you know who they are, they apologize?

"Usually after I get to them, they apologize very quickly. I write to them 'How in Ashkelon?', And ask personal things to show that I know who they are. They apologize and I demand that they do not do it to anyone else. I tell them: ' "I do not promise that I will not do anything with it, but if it happens again then I will not give up." I am sure there were some who stopped after I exposed them. "

How do you find the strength to get back to playing after harassment?

"Before you think of saying something to a girl, close your eyes and imagine that someone sent a message to your sister, your mother, your daughter or your partner. For women, I want to say that there is nothing to be ashamed of or afraid to express yourself, and if it's hard to deal with, do not stop yourself "Play and go back. Can't cope? Stop the chat, still enjoy the game experience."

"I heard you need a sponsor," a documentary from a conversation Reut Arieh had with an actor

Afriat, for her part, has revealed another side of the harassment. "Ever since I can remember playing video games. My first memory was when I was two years old when my sister played Super Mario when she was six. But when I look back, I say 'God help me, how lucky I was not to be raped,'" she said.

"I look at interactions I had with men much older than me. I thought it was cool to be able to talk to older men about games, and today I know it could have been a very slippery slope and the interactions could have ended differently," Afriat explained. "Harassment is a kind of secret that everyone knows, power relations and older men hanging out with young girls."

"When I was a girl, I hung out with a lot of people who are gamers," she continued. "From my point of view it was like 'how cool these older people are looking at me.' In retrospect, I'm now looking and a lot of them were 20's or older, and I just do not know how to describe it nicely, but there were a lot of touches, hugs, kisses. I had "Luckily nothing happened to me beyond. There was a lot of contact with sexual connotations, things that were said that today I understand are invitations."

How are you working to stop this harassment?

"Today I am the first chair of the Anime and Manga Organization of Israel, which was established 13 years ago. As part of the organization, I established a large and effective team that deals with everything related to sexual harassment and prevention of sexual harassment online. We have a social worker working with us at all events. Something: Report it immediately. "

The law does not protect gamerism

The online world has created a new reality, in which people feel comfortable expressing themselves in statements they will never say in reality, face to face. Today, it seems that when it comes to harassment of women in the gaming world, the situation is dismal.

On the one hand the awareness of sexual abuse is rising, but on the other hand it seems that the gaming giants like Discord, which allows online conversations and Twitch, which allows the transmission of game broadcasts, do not develop any mechanism to prevent these harassments. Added to this is the difficulty of locating the players, who remain anonymous and are usually in different countries.

The Sexual Harassment Prevention Act defines five types of behavior that constitute sexual harassment, and a 2014 amendment added that a person who distributes sexual images of another person online without his or her permission will be subject to a penalty of up to five years in prison. However, the law does not specifically address harassment through a computer game, but generally addresses any harassment on any platform.

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Various tests have shown that the attitude towards gamers is completely different from the attitude towards men. It is possible that a combination of young age, lack of awareness and perhaps also a lack of education on the subject, lead to the actors allowing themselves to speak abusively towards other actresses or actors.

Walla! NEWS The Israel Police regarding the number of complaints filed following sexual harassment during computer games on the Internet, responded that the police do not have the requested data in the database. Police said that a few months ago it completed the establishment of 16 family divisions at 16 stations, to create an array that deals with sexual offenses committed in the family and non-family sexual offenses.

Investigations into sexual offenses are being conducted by Unit 105 in Blade 433 as well as in the various police districts. The police did not elaborate on how to handle and investigate the issue of sexual harassment on the Internet, nor on the scope of the phenomenon and the number of complaints it receives on the subject.

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