Disparate Impact in the Blogosphere
posted by Frank Pasquale
Danielle Citron gave a compelling presentation at the recent Yale Symposium on Reputation in Cyberspace exploring how group dynamics can deter women from participating online. The Yale Pocket Part has done a symposium on online harassment. Citron moved the discussion forward by analyzing social psychological dynamics in online life and describing how much more likely women are to be threatened by the worst type of comments:
Threats, lies, and the disclosure of private facts discourage women from blogging in their own names. Women lose opportunities to establish online identities that would enhance their careers and attract clients.
Destructive online groups prevent the Web from becoming an inclusive environment. Disappointingly, this phenomenon throws us back to the nineteenth century, when women wrote under gender-neutral pseudonyms to avoid discrimination.
Web 2.0 technologies provide all of the accelerants of mob behavior but very few of its inhibitors. . . . Individuals who feel anonymous do and say things online that they would never seriously entertain doing and saying offline because they sense that their conduct will have no consequences. A site operator’s decision to keep up damaging posts encourages destructive group behavior. Online mobs also have little reason to fear that their victims will retaliate against them.
The AutoAdmit lawsuit is a first step toward addressing the last concern. Making internet intermediaries more responsible may be another.
Given that the Yale conference had been criticized for failing to adequately include women’s voices, Citron’s presentation was especially important. While cyberspace may be liberating for many, the same prejudices that permeate real life can infect the online world. And as more of our life gets conducted online, combating these prejudices is going to need to become not merely a legal, but a cultural project. That issue has a long history, and has sparked many valuable discussions. Citron has already done very important work on making computer systems more accountable, and I look forward to reading her contributions in this area.
December 10, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Posted in: Cyberlaw, Feminism and Gender, Google & Search Engines, Privacy, Tort Law
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Responses (7)
Jon Garfunkel - December 10, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Frank– as a new reader to this blog, I thank you for linking to some past research of mine in this post.
That link was part of my work in 2005 (which continues through today) in trying to understand/document evidence of the bias in the social/technological space. It’s not academic, but it was part of the chain of effort which led to the BlogHer conference that year. And with my meager contribution to this field of study, I don’t think Ann’s criticism of the conference was valid. She merely tallied the planned speakers ten days before. I went to the conference, and I didn’t see any of the manifest bias that I have seen at other conferences. (I posted such to Ann’s blog, and it’s stuck in moderation. I also must say that I have emailed with Ann before on related issues, and I was very appreciative of her help, so I mean no personal slight to her here.)
I’ll add that Danielle Citron’s presentation was terrific, and important. The whole second panel (host here included!) was well run, and I appreciated their work in preparing for the symposium.
Jon
Ann Bartow - December 11, 2007 at 11:09 am
Jon,
Today (above)(here: http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/12/the_woes_of_web.html ) Dan Solove linked to a CNN article entitled “Young women drink, party, post” here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/10/face.book/index.html
Dan’s take on the article is very different than mine. Of course Dan doesn’t speak for all men, and I don’t speak for all women. But I find it telling that CNN took a special interest in a Facebook group featuring purported images of drunk women, and has now brought levels of publicity to the site that the participants could never have expected for planned for. The article notes that the women are “not anonymous” but does not give their full names, which to me is an odd and noteworthy approach to the issue of identifying them publicly. CNN has facilitated their identification but can duck responsibility since the article didn’t do any actual naming.
I also found the most interesting part of the article to be something Dan did not highlight, and that was this passage:
The group’s moderator said she knows some people look down on her and other women in the group, but it doesn’t bother her.
“[They think we're] sloppy, unladylike, low class,’” she wrote in a recent instant message conversation. “[But] I’ve noticed when college boys do stupid things when they’re drunk, they’re just being boys.”
I’m not faulting Dan for anything here. I’m just trying to explain that he and I had very different reactions to the article, and I think there is a gendered reason for this. At a conference where 20% or fewer of the participants are women, gendered issues are likely to get short shrift, and this is in part a function of tallying up the gender of the speakers, to see whose opinions are regarded as more valid and important.
Jon Garfunkel - December 11, 2007 at 9:31 pm
re: “But I find it telling that CNN took a special interest in a Facebook group featuring purported images of drunk women…”
Contact CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Incidentally, Alessandro Acquisti had used that example at the symposium (he learned about it from 11/5/07 Salon.com article)
So I suppose Dan’s tepid reaction to this was based on the fact that he had heard about it very recently and thus didn’t express surprise.
Ann Bartow - December 11, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I should contact “CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen” why, exactly? She is undoubtedly giving CNN’s audience what she thinks it wants.
I tried to be clear that I am not criticizing Dan’s reaction, I am just saying I think that many women would react differently, but in a room full of mostly men at YLS that alternative reaction would get diluted and minimized.
Here’s another reaction to that article, somewhat different than mine, from another feminist:
http://feministing.com/archives/008222.html
Ann Bartow - December 11, 2007 at 10:43 pm
I’d also note that Eugene Volokh made “it doesn’t matter” arguments about the gender composition of Federalist Society events, see e.g. http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2034
Eric Muller did a nice job dispatching them here: http://www.isthatlegal.org/archives/2007/07/why_the_federal.html
Daniel J. Solove - December 12, 2007 at 12:55 am
Ann — You keep referring to my “reaction” to the story, but I don’t quite understand what you mean by my “reaction” or how you can assume you know my “reaction.” The fact that my post doesn’t point out gender issues in the story does not mean that my reaction was one of indifference or neglect. It could mean that I didn’t see it, or it could also simply mean that I chose not to raise it in my post. And the fact that I didn’t raise it in my post doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t think it is an important issue.
Ann Bartow - December 12, 2007 at 9:47 am
Dan, fair enough. I was trying to give a user friendly illustration about the ways women and men might see an issue differently. I didn’t mean to suggest your post was some definitive statement about your views.
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