Nature - Online harassment: a toolkit for protecting yourself from abuse

[Esther12]

I think this is worth reading all of:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02766-w

Posting because it includes a link to the Andrew Anthony Guardian piece on Sharpe:

Online and digital harassment has had a significant impact on scientists working on issues such as climate change, gun control, vaccines and even challenging health conditions such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

There's also this Nature editorial introducing it: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02818-1

These pieces follow on from a 2021 editorial: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02757-3

That editorial linked to the SMC's guide on harassment:

The Science Media Centre in London is among organizations that have published advice for those experiencing harassment, including when, whether and how to engage with critics, and who to turn to for support (see go.nature.com/3lyyqlj).

 

[ME/CFS Skeptic]

Frustrating. I wonder how much the author looked into the issue of ME/CFS. I think she might have simply been happy to have found another example to use in her article, rather than digging into it and see if what really happened.

I fear that commenting or contacting them will only make us look more aggressive...

 

[Esther12]

Frustrating. I wonder how much the author looked into the issue of ME/CFS. I think she might have simply been happy to have found another example to use in her article, rather than digging into it and see if what really happened.

I fear that commenting or contacting them will only make us look more aggressive...

Yes.

My guess would be that they read the SMC document and then just looked for a supporting article.

I thought that, especially the first piece, was an interesting insight into how some people within science view these matters. To me, there were people viewing some legitimate aims and actions as forms of harassment - eg, I think that it can be reasonable to want to damage the reputation of an organisation whose reputation is more positive than its actions justify. Understanding the views and instincts of the people in science should hopefully help us avoid presenting ourselves in a needlessly self-destructive manner.

 

[Samuel]

when do we get the big expose in major media about the development of the harassmenet narrative and about the smc. is such an expose not possible or counterproductive?