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EU Definitions of Online Misogyny
There currently is no consolidated definition of online misogyny or online harassment on EU level. Our work on defining online misogyny for Opt Out Tools therefore draws on related definitions that emerge from the work of various EU bodies and studies they have commissioned.
While our work centres on online misogyny, many different terminologies around the same and related online phenomena circulate. Examples include: online harassment, cyberharassment, technology-facilitated violence, online violence, cyber violence, digital violence, online abuse, online hate speech, cyberstalking, networked harassment, online violence against women (VAW), online gender based violence (GBV), or technology-related abuse.
Some are used to describe very specific issues that can form part of online misogyny, some are used synonymously, and others may constitute online misogyny insofar as the targeted persons are women. While reviewing existing definitions, we draw on potentially relevant work regardless of terminology used.
Sources:
EIGE Report Cyber violence against women and girls, 2017
EIGE Glossary & Thesaurus
"Gender-based violence that is perpetrated through electronic communication and the internet."
"There are various forms of cyber violence against women and girls, including, but not limited to, cyber stalking, non-consensual pornography (or ‘revenge porn’), gender-based slurs, hate speech and harassment, ‘slut-shaming’, unsolicited pornography, ‘sextortion’, rape threats and death threats, and electronically facilitated trafficking.
Cyber violence is not a separate phenomenon to ‘real world’ violence, as it often follows the same patterns as offline violence."
"Harassment by means of email, text (or online) messages or the internet. It can take many forms, including but not limited to:
- Unwanted sexually explicit emails, text (or online) messages;
- Inappropriate or offensive advances on social networking websites or internet chat rooms;
- Threats of physical and/or sexual violence by email, text (or online) messages;
- Hate speech, meaning language that denigrates, insults, threatens or targets an individual based on her identity (gender) and other traits (such as sexual orientation or disability)."
"Stalking by means of email, text (or online) messages or the internet. Stalking involves repeated incidents, which may or may not individually be innocuous acts, but combined undermine the victim’s sense of safety and cause distress, fear or alarm.
Acts can include:
- Sending emails, text messages (SMS) or instant messages that are offensive or threatening;
- Posting offensive comments about the respondent on the internet;
- Sharing intimate photos or videos of the respondent, on the internet or by mobile phone.
To be considered as cyber stalking, these acts must take place repeatedly and be perpetrated by the same person."
"Also known as cyber exploitation or ‘revenge porn’, non-con- sensual pornography involves the online distribution of sexually graphic photographs or videos without the consent of the individual in the images."
Source:
Factsheet Combating Sexist Hate Speech, 2016
"is one of the expressions of sexism, which can be defined as any supposition, belief, assertion, gesture or act that is aimed at expressing contempt towards a person, based on her or his sex or gender, or to consider that person as inferior or essentially reduced to her or his sexual dimension. Sexist hate speech includes expressions which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on sex."
While not explicitly concerned with online violence, the Istanbul Convention forms the basis for much of the work/thinking around violence against women that takes place at different European institutions.
Sources:
Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence, 2011
European Parliament, 2018. Study for the FEMM committee: Cyber violence and hate speech online against women
The following definitions from the Istanbul Convention can extend to online violence against women:
“… is understood as violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and shall mean all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” (Art. 3a)
“all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within the family or intimate partner unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.” (Art. 3b)
“any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” (Art. 40)
“the intentional conduct of seriously impairing a person’s psychological integrity through coercion or threats” (Art. 33)
“repeatedly engaging in threatening conduct directed at another person, causing her or him to fear for her or his safety” (Art. 34)
While neither the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, nor the Additional Protocol on racist/xenophobic acts make explicit mention of online violence against women, the Working Group on cyberbullying and other forms of online violence at the Council of Europe CyberCrime Convention Committee has drafted a Mapping study on cyberviolence (2018) which defines "cyberviolence".
"the use of computer systems to cause, facilitate, or threaten violence against individuals that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering and may include the exploitation of the individual’s circumstances, characteristics or vulnerabilities."
Interestingly, the authors of the mapping study state in a footnote that “this working definition is an adaptation of the 'cyber' context of the definition of violence against women of Article 3 of the Istanbul Convention." (see above)
From a feminist perspective, we might ponder how stripping a definition of its ties to gender and women seems to be what makes it "cyber".
More granular definitions from the same mapping study in the following section.
Sources:
Mapping study on cyberviolence, 2018
European Parliament, 2018. Study for the FEMM committee: Cyber violence and hate speech online against women
The mapping study describes a typology of different forms of cyberviolence. Some of the mentioned types are then defined in some more detail, others are not. For the purpose of comparing and assessing existing definitions of online harassment, the typology is of interest in its own right because it describes what forms of violence the Council of Europe CyberCrime Convention Committee considers and contributes towards fleshing out their definition of cyberviolence (see above).
- Computer intrusions
- Taking, sharing, manipulation of data or images, incl. intimate data
- Sextortion
- Stalking
- Doxing
- Identity theft
- Impersonation
- Etc.
Against groups based on
- race
- ethnicity
- religion
- sex
- sexual orientation
- disability
- Etc.
- Defamation and other damage to reputation
- Cyberbullying
- Threats of violence, incl. sexual violence
- Coercion
- Insults or threats
- Incitement to violence
- Revenge porn
- Incitement to suicide or self-harm
- Etc.
- Murder
- Kidnapping
- Sexual violence
- Rape
- Torture
- Extortion
- Blackmail
- Swatting
- Incitement to violence
- Transmissions that themselves cause injuries
- Attacks on critical infrastructure, cars or medical devices
- Etc.
- Illegal access
- Illegal interception
- Data interference
- System interference
- Computer-related forgery
- Computer-related fraud
- Child pornography
- Sexual abuse
- Child prostitution
- Child pornography
- Corruption of children
- Solicitation of children for sexual purposes
- Sexual abuse via livestreaming
- Etc.
Read pp. 5-14 of the mapping study for the full descriptions. The following are only short excerpts that contribute to defining the forms of cyberviolence most immediately relevant to Opt Out. Also see the full descriptions for references to research that contains definitions.
"involves a persistent and repeated course of conduct targeted at a specific person that is designed to and that causes severe emotional distress and often the fear of physical harm."
"Cyberharassment is often targeted at women and girls and termed 'cyber violence against women and girls' (CVAWG or Cyber VAWG) involving:
- Unwanted sexually explicit emails or other messages;
- Offensive advances in social media and other platforms;
- Threat of physical or sexual violence;
- Hate speech meaning language that denigrates, insults, threatens or targets an individual based on her identity (gender) and/or other traits (such as sexual orientation or disability).
Cyberharrassment thus involves a range of conduct, including for example 'cyberbullying' and 'revenge porn'."
"Cyberbullyingis a form of cyberharassment that tends to be associated with victims who are children, often of high school age, while phenomena such as cyberstalking, sextortion or 'revenge porn' are more likely to be associated with adults or young adults."
Criteria that characterise cyberbullying:
- Intent to hurt
- Imbalance in power
- Recurrent behaviour and ongoing abuse
- Non-consensual distribution of intimate images
"'Revenge porn' is a term in popular discourse that centres on the sexually explicit portrayal of one or more persons that is distributed without the subject’s consent. The phenomenon predominantly involves a partner in an intimate relationship disseminating the material in order to humiliate or intimidate the victim."