Why the Term ‘Freedom of Speech’ is Problematic in Discussions of Online Sexual Harassment

TW: SA, rape, online harassment

Written by: Rosie Higgins (she/her)

Time and time again, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have chosen to turn a blind eye to online harassment, particularly aimed at women and other marginalised groups. This is despite their lack of hesitation to censor and remove posts relating to matters such as breastfeeding, or women on holiday in swimwear. A common line of defence from these platforms and from social media users in general is the right to exercise a ‘freedom of speech’. Is this a valid reason to allow harassment to thrive on an online space, or is it time we abandoned this age-old excuse for misogyny and gender based hate crimes?

Plan International Children’s Rights Organisation conducted a study in 2020. They found that out of the 14,000 girls they surveyed (aged between 15 and 25, across 22 different countries), 58% had experienced online harassment. This is a clear feminist issue that is repeatedly ignored by social media platforms, by the public, and by those in positions of social power. Women across the globe are waking up to sexist slurs in their comment section, unsolicited sexual requests via message and even severe cases of stalking. And not just women, but also children. Chat rooms for children, with no age verification and no registration process, exist online, where, presumably, older men can request intimate information and child pornography. This is not only sickening to hear, but it is an obvious breach of the law.

This online sexual abuse extends to women in teenage years and adulthood. For example, the modern phenomena of ‘revenge porn’, which involves the sharing of intimate sexual materials without the person’s consent, is often used as a form of blackmail. A study conducted in 2019 found that the number of victims of revenge porn had doubled from two years prior to the study. Women are, therefore, subject to revenge porn, sexist slurs, stalking and theats of violence, rape and even death. These are the kind of messages that make women scared to lead an independent life, where they are exposed to the dangerous and frightening world they have been made aware of through social media. This often leads to women removing social media altogether. However, law enforcement and social media remain, on the whole, silent. It appears that when it comes to online harassment, women are on their own.

When women feel they have no choice but to remove themselves from social media as a result of abuse, we see a perpetrator’s demand for ‘freedom of speech’ silence women and therefore remove a woman's right to ‘freedom of speech’. Society’s permittance of male online abuse as a reason to allow ‘freedom of speech’ is contradictory and hypocritical, as it removes the presence of women online, meaning their experiences go unheard.

Intersectionality also plays a huge role. The stories of online abuse that are more likely to make it to mainstream media coverage are those of typically attractive, privileged or white women, not allowing for the representation of abuse that lots of POC and less privileged women experience, silencing them to an even greater extent. For example, black women are not only subject to online sexual harassment but also online racial harassment. These are the stories that are missing from the news due to a eurocentric worldview and media platform. These are the missing stories that further silence and marginalise women, and especially women of colour.

Feminist writer and activist, Laura Bates, argues that

“freedom of speech is one of the most misused terms in modern discourse… (and) is not limitless.”

She adds that

“it doesn’t enshrine anybody's right to abuse, to incite or to threaten and terrify others''.

Laura has fought for women’s voices to be heard for years and has gone to the police with numerous accounts of online rape and death threats, only to be told that the case was dropped because the perpetrator could not be traced , despite her providing IP addresses. How can ‘freedom of speech’ still be used as a ‘get-out clause’ for obvious, objective, criminal activity?

‘Freedom of speech’ as a line of defence is and will always be a poor excuse for gender-based online harassment. It is a huge contradiction that the freedom of harmful male speech should be protected, when this comes at the cost of silencing the freedom of speech of women, as they are driven away from online spaces for the sake of their own safety. It is a reminder of the frightening reality that in society, men’s voices, and their freedom of speech, is valued and protected more than women’s. It’s time to stop silencing women as a means of shielding a man’s ‘freedom of speech’. It’s time to start creating safe online spaces for all.