Today, both the New York Times and the Guardian have articles about online sexual harassment. The Guardian’s article describes several cases in which women bloggers have been harassed for such simple things as posing with a political figure, or speaking their minds. In our daily lives most people would agree that harassment is unacceptable but in cyberspace, sites that include attacks in women see their numbers soar. To make matters worse, if someone “cat calls” you on the street, you can just walk away and it will probably be over, when this happens on the web there is a permanent record. Besides many of these attacks easily move these sites up in rank, leaving women to deal with realities that include them in basic Google searches in the most derogatory ways.

The New York Times article focused more on how the web has become a free for all atmosphere, yet how prominent bloggers, both men and women, are working to establish some basic rules. The basic rules were first proposed by BlogHer, and are beginning to reach broader acceptance, since this type of harassment is affecting not only women, but also people from a variety minority groups.

(This post was originally used for my technology class.)