Digital violence against women
all articles
Because of racist and sexist aggression on the Internet, the Green politician Renate Künast has launched a cross-party appeal "against digital violence" together with net activists and women's rights activists.
"We clearly call the violence that takes place on the Internet and what it is for what it is," the call says, "instead of wiping it out as an 'Internet outrage culture' or 'other opinions.'" Hate Speech ultimately means danger for democracy. "
The initiators, including the SPD politician Sawsan Chebli, the Left Bundestag Anke Domscheit-Berg and the feminist author Anne Wizorek, call for a public debate on the "gender aspects of digital violence and hate speech" and their references to "racism, anti-Semitism and Disability Hostility ".
more on the subject
In order to counteract these forms of violence more effectively, the authors demand that public prosecutors defend Hate Speech, better police equipment and training, law enforcement and courts, and dismantle legal hurdles for civil claims. Social media providers would have to be made more responsible, for example, by contributing to the cost of consulting against Hate Speech.
"Women suffer attacks not only in the analog world," said Künast the SPIEGEL. "Also in the net that spreads for years." The sexist dimension of hatred or violence in the web is often ignored or ridiculed by the public, the Greens say. "Now the whole society is called on to perceive the problem and to act together against it."
Trigger for the appeal was a court order against Künast, in which the judges had classified the worst insults against the politician by anonymous Facebook users still allowed. The appeal also warns against digital violence "from the personal environment of those affected", for example through online stalking or illicitly distributed nude pictures.
This topic comes from the new SPIEGEL magazine - available at the kiosk from Saturday morning and every Friday at SPIEGEL + and in the digital magazine edition.
What is in the new SPIEGEL and what stories you find at SPIEGEL +, you will also learn in our free policy newsletter DIE LAGE, which appears six times a week - compact, analytical, opinionated, written by the political minds of the editorial.
