Future Tense: Study: Chat rooms hostile to...

May 10, 2006

A study by the University of Maryland's School of Engineering finds that female-name users of Internet Relay Chat are subjected to a barrage of sexually abusive language and violent verbal attacks. In the study, chatroom users with names like "Kathy" or "Irene" received 25 times more malicious messages than users with names like "Bob" or "Jack."

Comments: 3

Julia Schrenkler May 11, 2006, 10:09am EDT

Active Internet users more likely to experience malicious attacks?

That's the part that stood out for me - Jon Gordon reported that this study started with the premise that talkative/active chat users would be more likely to get hit with viruses/worms/malicious technical attacks.

Should the researchers have been surprised that female chat names received suggestive messages? Frankly, I'm more surprised that this came as a surprise! (The study will be published in June 2006, and I'll be looking for it.)

What does this say about the culture of the Internet?

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Caryn D. May 11, 2006, 10:12am EDT

Hmmm ... well I think that it's easy to flex your aggressive muscles or dominant tendencies when you don't have to own up to these actions. I'm not surprised that a female name would receive more harassment than a male name. I agree with you, Julia -- it's not exactly a shocking discovery.

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Julia Schrenkler May 11, 2006, 10:18am EDT

Female/Male communications on the Internet are the topic of many discussions. I still can't get over this was a "discovery".

You made an excellent point, Caryn. Is it about aggression? Gender? Soliciting sex? Harassment? Anonymity?

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Future Tense: Study: Chat rooms hostile to girls, women

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