Online threats, stalking and revenge porn hits 1 in 2 Aussies, amid calls for social media change
Australian victims are suffering a ‘shocking’ number of online stalking, threats and revenge porn incidents, according to new research.
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ONE in six online abusers thought threatening victims was “funny” and one in 10 expected their victim would be “flattered” by stalking, harassment, violent threats, or revenge porn.
These are the disturbing findings of two groundbreaking studies into “technology-facilitated abuse” in Australia released on Thursday.
The research, including a survey of victims and perpetrators, heard one abuser admit phoning his victim “about 150 times … in a two-hour period,” while another victim said she stayed with her abuser for “a couple of years” due to ongoing threats to post nude images across social media if she left the relationship.
The Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) studies also found digital platforms and utility companies were not doing enough to safeguard victims, and one in every two Australians would suffer online abuse during their lifetime.
ANROWS chief executive Padma Raman said the findings showed “shocking” levels of online abuse, but she was most surprised by perpetrators’ relaxed attitudes towards abuse and their willingness to admit threatening their partners.
“What it’s telling us is that this problem of violence against women perpetrated by intimate partners or former partners is at epidemic proportions,” she said.
“Some of the men were saying ‘I needed control in my life and one way to make sure I was in control was tracking my partner’. To say that and not see something deeply wrong points to a bigger problem with the attitudes that some men have around what they see as control.”
Interviews with 30 abuse victims and abusers by RMIT and Monash University researchers revealed many ways technology was used to harass and abuse victims, including one man who copied all account information from his partner’s phone to track her movements, and a man who “changed his prepaid SIM card 23 times” to harass a woman after their relationship ended.
Other harassment included hacking into social media accounts and posting vile messages, and image-based abuse, also known as revenge porn.
“He said that if I didn’t keep sending him nudes, they would end up on the internet. They were going to go everywhere,” one victim told researchers. “So, then I kind of got stuck in this relationship for … a couple of years where I sort of had this kind of blackmail over the top of me.”
Monash University criminology associate professor Dr Asher Flynn said the experiences showed how traumatic technology-facilitated abuse could be for victims, who were often left feeling paranoid, ostracised, and unable to trust technology or other people.
“Technology is omnipresent — it’s everywhere in our lives, it’s in our phones and our computers,” she said.
“When you’re being abused and harassed in that way, it’s hard to know when it will stop.”
Despite this harm, Dr Flynn said abuse reports were often not taken seriously by social networks or police.
Just 11 of 20 online abuse victims in the study reported threats to the police, and only one had a positive experience, Dr Flynn said, with some victims told “it was lucky it wasn’t physical abuse” and told to switch off their phones.
Dr Flynn said she hoped the research would change attitudes to tech abuse, and called for utility companies, like electricity, gas and telephone providers, to consider changes too.
“It was difficult (for victims) to be able to start their own account without the company contacting their ex-partner,” she said.
“There are these factors that we need to take into consideration and have companies thinking about how to make it easier when their lives are entangled.”
Those suffering online abuse can seek help from the eSafety Commission at esafety.gov.au or by calling 1800 RESPECT.
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Originally published as Online threats, stalking and revenge porn hits 1 in 2 Aussies, amid calls for social media change
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