Hollaback and Posting harassers information

[stacycat69]

This is brought over from our twitter discussion, because it is too long to have in 140 characters :)

iHollaback is a new promotion from the HollabackNYC website. While I think NYC is the first one, this phenomenon has spread over the globe to multiple cities and countries

Comments

[maymaym]

For what it's worth, I was disappointed in this tweet from the iHollaback twitter account:

HOLLA! RT @stacycat: @maymaym Activities that the oppressors use to oppress others are not identical when the oppressed use them.

Was our Twitter conversation a form of "Twitter harassment"? If not, why was your response viewed as a "holla"?

Technology is a wonderful thing. As Nikolas's pessimism points out, what this technology is doing is lowering the bar to report harassment. Neither he nor I are saying that's "a bad thing," we're saying it's a potentially dangerous thing from a number of angles.

I hope you can understand why I worry about the tactic iHollback is using considering I feel very much like I've just been implicitly accused of harassment by the iHollaback twitter account in their recent tweet.

Our twitter conversation, for the record, began with this tweet of mine:

Can't yet pinpoint why this implementation bothers me. ♺ @raquelita: #iPhone app fights street #harassment http://vb. ( ... )

[stacycat69]

Thank you for posting the twitter conversation :) I got lost trying to look back

[maymaym]

Stacy, again, I say and mean: I hear and understand you.

At the same time, I feel like you didn't even bother to answer my question. This talking past one another, not with one another, is precisely the problem I feel is likely to be exaggerated, not resolved, by the kind of implementation I see iHollback developing.

[stacycat69]

No, I do not feel that you have harassed me. I do not feel that you have harassed anyone. Even in your recent posts about the people who were harassing you, you welcomed non violent discussion.

I view the outreach by hollaback, and the development of their application, as a source that women can use to speak out against those who harass them. Women are not always safe to do this while in the situation where they are being harassed, because harassment can be a form of verbal violence. Women cannot always take their complaints to police, because police 1) typically will refuse to investigate, or 2) say they cannot do anything unless they can find the perpetrator. I have heard stories of bystanders intervening, and police making arrests.

Would you have the same issue if the application was used to take pictures of people committing crimes other than harassment?