HOT DOCS 2018: Online Harassment is Exposed as an Epidemic in NETIZENS

“This film is not just about the internet…it is about our lives”—Cynthia Lowen, director of Netizens

The ubiquity of important movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up may make it seem like the war against harassment and assault is finally being won. Unfortunately, powerful documentaries like Cynthia Lowen’s Netizens must be made to remind us of how much fighting still needs to be done.

Netizens focuses primarily on the stories of three women: victims’ rights attorney Carrie Goldberg, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, and activist and survivor Tina Raine, each of whom has had personal experience with harassment. Though the film mainly focuses on their stories — along with glimpses into others — the full picture of systemic harassment and abuse online is painted, and it feels like we are seeing the stories of millions. In many ways, we are.

As the subjects share their stories, we are able to see how easily abuse can extend from a personal context to professional, and from the confines of the internet out into the real world. Gone are the days when harassment could potentially be escaped by leaving town; anything posted online could become a life-altering international threat.

One of the many timely topics the film addresses is the systemic issues with social media platforms that only now is Silicon Vally starting to address. Being able to see the film screened at Hot Docs as part of the Big Ideas panel allowed me the privilege of a post-screening panel discussion featuring Lowen, Sarkeesian, and Goldberg, where they delved further into this idea. The film shows just how easy it is to ruin someone else’s life when major platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter can be quickly accessed and utilized with the push of a button, but claims of “first amendment rights” and “censorship” cause them to hesitate before combating these attacks.

More than anything, the film demonstrates how dangerous it is to dismiss online harassment as a lesser threat because of its virtual nature. In a time when a man will run down people on the busiest street in Toronto (allegedly) in connection with online misogynists, the breeding-grounds for hate that exist all over the internet are far from self-contained.  The internet is present in almost every aspect of our lives, and conversations like the ones in Netizens are needed to demonstrate how the vitriolic abuse directed at women online needs to be treated like a global emergency, because that’s what it is.

www.netizensfilm.com