PSA involving female sportswriters shows nature of online harassment

In a new video by podcast and website Just Not Sports, looks specifically at the online abuse suffered by women who work in sports to show that numerous tweets they receive are simply #MoreThanMean. The men – who weren’t the original writers of the tweets – struggle and eventually apologize on behalf of their gender.

DiCaro and Spain fielded angry claims on social media that the tweets in the video were “just jokes” and that, somehow, extreme harassment is an accepted – and thereby acceptable – part of a journalist’s job. The video prefaces things by saying DiCaro and Spain have seen the tweets, while the men had not. “They have good hearts, you can tell by their discomfort”, one woman wrote on Wednesday morning. It starts off harmlessly enough – if the baseline for harmless commentary online is still mean abuse – but then slides into something far more shocking.

Later, to DiCaro: “I hope you get raped again”. The video ends with profuse apologies from the readers and the statement, “We wouldn’t say this to their faces”. It’s understandably uncomfortable to read these comments out loud, but to read them to the live person to whom they’re directed as they’re sitting right in front of you?

“I’m hoping [the video] will spur Twitter to take some steps to make it easier to report harassment and to make blocking a lot more affective so that you’re not stuck with these people in your life”, said DiCaro. So, in an attempt to address this vitriolic and persistent online harassment, Just Not Sports released a PSA that highlighted just how bad it gets.

The men regularly apologised for the content of the messages they were reading, while one asked if he had to read the next post. Another message targeted at DiCaro states, “hopefully the skank Julie DiCaro is Bill Cosby’s next victim”.

Abusing people online removes face to face interaction, so what happens when people have to read such abuse to women in person?