Graham Linehan and online harassment: a timeline

Were you on twitter during Gamergate? God, what a time.

If you weren't extremely online circa 2015 (brag) let me explain (no, there is too much; let me sum up): in the latter half of 2014 a bunch of the internet's discontented men launched a massive targeted harassment campaign against essentially all women who worked in or talked about or briefly mentioned video games.

It grew out of the existing swamp of awful men online. Men who lacked the self-awareness to process or address their inability to meet their own emotional needs, and took it out on women. Red pill men. The manosphere. If you don't recognise those terms I refuse to be the one who explains them to you.

It's enough to note that there was a misogynistic, racist soup on the underbelly of the internet a little over a decade ago it spilled out into a putrid flood.

It started with the false claim that Zoë Quinn, am indie game developer, had slept with people in exchange for good reviews, and spiralled uncontrollably into a broad, impotent howl about women invading male pastimes – not just games, in the end, but popular modern SciFi in general. Women were ruining Star Wars, comic books, nerd conventions, the whole hog.

From deeply silly beginnings, the movement became horrifying in scope and intensity. It went for women (and any men who defended them) who worked in game design, in game and film criticism, even women who did nothing but tweet, viciously attacking them online. It started in the US but within weeks it was international.

Anyone who was even slightly feminist on twitter risked an onslaught of abuse that could last for weeks. For the higher profile targets, like Quinn, it was unceasing for months.

Plenty of the people targeted reported the harassment they were facing to the police, and it quickly became clear that the police would do nothing about it. They weren't equipped for dealing with online harassment, or they didn't really think it was a problem if it happened on twitter. Just don't go on twitter!

And as the police sat back, the campaign of harassment escalated. People had their home addresses and phone numbers leaked. People had photos of their houses sent to them along with claims of bombs being left. People had the police called out to their homes, responding to false reports of violence.

It wasn't the birth of online harassment, just the moment it went mainstream. And the moment it became clear how few people in power had any interest in countering it.

Gamergate died down but it never really went away. It emboldened more people to be more hateful more openly online.

There have been victims of online harassment ever since we went online as a species, but their numbers have grown in the last decade and the consequences have been severe. There is a mortality rate.

When JK Rowling first dipped her toes into transphobia the wave of hurt and fury directed at her was enormous and I have not doubt that it included abuse. Being on the right side of an issue doesn't prevent people from doing harm.

But it's been extremely frustrating to see how often her allies use online harassment as a deflection from her attacks on trans people. The refrain has been repeated again and again – by JKR herself and by many of her supporters, including Graham Linehan.

They tell on themselves, with this tactic. You never see them invoke Caroline Flack when they call for civility online. They were not there supporting Leslie Jones or Kelly Marie Tran when they were subjected to a volume of abuse that caused them to delete their accounts. They definitely never beg people not to attack famous trans women like Munroe Bergdorf or Juno Dawson.

Their silence makes it abundantly clear that, to them, there are acceptable victims of online abuse, and unacceptable victims.

We still live in a world that does not have a sufficient response to online hate. Whether that's more a technological issue, a legal one, or a political one is probably debatable.

Being mean isn't illegal, whether you do it online or to someone's face, setting standards for how mean people can be on any given platform is up to that company. Of course, they then need to invest in proper moderation, which no one ever wants to do.

When does attention become harassment become stalking is already a question with a lot of grey in it. When it's happening online instead of in person it throws it further into doubt.

Someone insulting you on Instagram is no big deal. Someone insulting you every day? Just block them. Someone creating sock puppet accounts, someone recruiting people to join in, someone threatening you, someone revealing they know where you live.

Someone saying they're going to hurt you. Encouraging other people to hurt you.

Both JK Rowling and Graham have called for trans women spotted in women's public toilets to be attacked on sight. This is straightforwardly illegal. Inciting violence is a crime. Graham Linehan is facing legal consequences for an illegal act and suddenly everyone whose been so concerned about online harassment all this time is talking about how ridiculous it is to be arrested for a tweet.

There are no surprises here. Only endless frustration that despite the naked hypocrisy this group of rancid, desperate bigots have been able to sway policy. That their voices are heard over experts, over trans people themselves. That the sustained and successful campaign against trans rights is so obviously devoid of logic or rational thinking.

These people are pathetic. Using their money and influence to strip rights from some of the most vulnerable people among us, and whining like children when they're criticised. They're losers and they're winning.

I don't believe they'll win forever. This is a season. A reaction. But that they've taken people in at all is horrifying.

I don't have a solution for online abuse or for transphobia. All I know to do is notice it, to speak out when I can. To remember that this ight is long and that even when it's won it isn't over.