By Anna Connell*
Opinion - There's a scene in the The Handmaid's Tale where the protagonist June and a friend are out running during the final days before the authoritarian regime takes over.
Social media Photo: 123RF
They arrive at a café and June's card is declined. She asks the man behind the counter to try the card again, at which point he gets agitated and refuses.
"F***ing s***s, get the f**k out of here," he says, his hatred enabled by the regime's rising to power.
The night I watched that, I saw a series of tweets from feminist author Clementine Ford which detailed the threats of rape, bodily harm, and death she had received online. I wept watching that episode. Tears of frustration and anger about how close to reality it was.
The same barely concealed misogyny from fictional television now surfaces online every day, enabled by the social media platforms.
I feel that same frustration and anger about what Lani Wendt Young has gone through. An LGBT rights advocate and author, and survivor of child sexual abuse, she has used social media to openly discuss these issues. She has also filed over 800 screenshots of abuse and threats she's received for doing so.
Despite going to the police and asking Facebook to remove these comments, there haven't been any real consequences.
Theoretically, those on the receiving end of online abuse are offered some protection here under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Netsafe is the approved agency responsible for dealing with complaints made under the Act but are not an enforcement agency.
After a complaint is investigated, a court order can be sought. In response to Ms Wendt-Young's complaints, New Zealand police said they took the issue seriously. However, based on her experience, it seems they feel pretty powerless in the face of the swelling volume of online abuse.
Facebook has made noises about wanting users to feel safer and have reportedly hired 10,000 more moderators to review reports of abuse - but they don't have a great track record on this issue.
Recent allegations made in a UK documentary revealed a backlog of 15,000 reports were waiting to be dealt with. They claimed to have dealt with this but, at the time, staff reported they could not keep up with the 7000 violations they received each day.
It seems no one is resourced or equipped to deal with the speed and volume at which abuse can be hurled and threats laid bare online. Not the creators of the platforms, the agencies tasked with investigating complaints, the police, nor the courts.
It seems an insurmountable problem - perpetrators can number in the thousands and, in many instances, hide behind anonymous or fake profiles. It seems beyond regulation and the reach of the law.
For a long time people used to say, 'It's all about the conversation,' on social media. Many of us had an idealistic view of the force for good it could be in our world. But I think we've laboured under that misapprehension for too long now.
When presented with a smorgasbord of opinion and content, and given the tools to say what we like, to whomever we like, when we like, we can't behave or control ourselves. We can't conceal our hatred because we have been enabled by an almost unstoppable juggernaut to express it without thinking.
To Ms Wendt Young, I say sorry.
I am sorry you can't freely express yourself without being subjected to a torrent of hatred and abuse. I am sorry the law can't protect you adequately. I am sorry a force exists in our world that now seems impossible to regulate. I am sorry for not having something more constructive to say. Most of all I am sorry that when asking our fellow humankind to regulate their behaviour, they cannot.
Buy hey, at least The Handmaid's Tale is still fiction.
*Anna Connell is a digital strategist, columnist and commentator who writes about social media, digital news, politics, diversity and gender equality.