The youtubeur Squeezie denounced on Wednesday the cyberbullying suffered by one of the participants in his last video, judging that the insults would have been less if they had concerned a man. Physical insults are part of cybersexism.
A video about bad behavior online… leading to cyberbullying. In his latest YouTube video, Squeezie, along with videographers Gotaga and Kameto, confronted people who had been banned from the three streamers’ Twitch channels for various reasons. These people had to explain why, in their opinion, they should be “deban”. To make their decision, the videographers could rely on a pre-selected audience and ask the opinion of some of its members.
A young woman from the audience, named Audrey, notably intervened several times. But some internet users judged that it was “too first degree” for this partly humorous format. Audrey has collected many insults on Twitter, but also on TikTok, some of which are about her physique. Squeezie defended her in a tweet on Wednesday, saying “the video exposes exactly what you’re doing here: insulting, bashering, harassing, because we’re anonymous.”
He spoke again during a Twitch live on Wednesday evening, stating that “if it was a guy who had this behavior, you would have ten times less hard”.
“You just have to talk to Maghla (Editor’s note: a videographer who denounced the cyberharassment she suffers) or streamers to understand the difference in treatment between a guy who says things and a girl who says things on the Internet”, has he added.
Harassment with sexist characteristics
Many Internet users have contradicted the youtuber, believing that the facts would have been the same if they had concerned a man. In fact, Internet culture promotes “a culture of strong derision, so it is likely that a man would also have been insulted” for bringing a little seriousness to the Squeezie video, sociologist Margot Déage explains to BFMTV.com . But this cyberbullying specialist also points out that one of the characteristics of cybersexism is to utter physical insults.
The Hubertine Auclert center, the Ile-de-France center for gender equality, also notes that Audrey “is targeted as a woman who has spoken”, with sexist cyberviolence relating in particular to her clothes and “her appearance which would transgress the gender standards (which defines what a ‘real girl’ should look like) like her shaved hair”, develops the organization specializing in particular in cybersexism with BFMTV.com.
“Behind a screen, behavior is uninhibited. This makes it easier to talk about sexuality, for example. However, women are immediately judged on their bodies and screens allow a taboo to be lifted”, describes Margot Déage.
A “logic of male domination”
The Hubertine Auclert center sees it as “an injunction” to “silence” Audrey: “just as in the public space, women are encouraged to be invisible in cyberspace”. “Acts of online violence can force women to withdraw from the Internet”, observed in 2018 the UN special rapporteur on online violence against women and girls from a rights perspective. of man. Her rapport also highlighted the social isolation and psychological impact that cybersexism can have on victims.
“In general, the expression of women is easily mocked, especially for questions of justice, which refer to power”, also observes Margot Déage, who sees in it “a logic of male domination”.
Squeezie’s video refers to codes revolving around justice: it takes place in a real court, according to the videographer, who is himself disguised as a judge.
Internet, an unequal space
The Internet reproduces, and sometimes amplifies, the unequal dynamics that characterize society. According to “Sexism Barometer” published in January by the High Council for Equality between Women and Men, 55% of French people consider that women and men are not treated in the same way on social networks and only 32% see them as a space egalitarian (13% don’t know).
These inequalities are also seen in online harassment. According a study from the Pew Research Center, American men “are slightly more likely than women to report experiencing some form of online harassment (43% vs. 38%), but similar proportions of men and women have experienced more serious forms of this type of abuse”.
In the study by this American research center published in January 2021, for example, women are more likely than men to report having been sexually harassed online (16% against 5%). This is particularly the case among the youngest: “33% of women under 35 say they have been victims of sexual harassment online, compared to 11% of men under 35”.
2 years in prison and 30,000 euros fine
Faced with this type of situation, statements like those of Squeezie can be life-saving, according to Marie-Pierre Badré, the president of the Hubertine Auclert center. She finds her word important since the content creator has “an aura among young people”.
The victim can also file a complaint because cyberbullying is a crime. Legally, cyberbullying refers to the fact of making repeated comments or behaviors online with the aim or effect of degrading the living conditions of the victim.
Harassment can also be characterized when “the words or behaviors are imposed on the same victim, successively, by several people who, even in the absence of consultation, know that these words or behaviors characterize a repetition”, according to the Penal Code. So even if an Internet user only sends an insulting message to another, if he knows that the person has been insulted by other people, it is still harassment. The penalty for cyberbullying is two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
Two toll-free numbers dedicated to harassment
In the event of cyberbullying, you can dial 3018. This number can be reached from Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
