Someone posted my full name, contact information, where I live, along with graphic sexual comments about me on a forum where there are no moderators—and therefore, the post can’t be deleted—because I agreed with someone they have a beef with due to her feminist-slanted journalism in the comments section of her blog. I wasn’t the only one they did this to. The only comforting thing about this is the fact that they got some of the details wrong, and if I’m going to be the target of some misogynist asshole, I’d at least prefer it be one who is too inept to find me.
This is the sort of thing we’re complaining about. It’s not the fact that there are mean people on the internet. It’s the fact that so often, the attacks on us are so violent, so threatening, and every so disturbingly often, accompanied by details about where you live or what you do that make it very clear that if someone wanted to do something to hurt you, it wouldn’t be very hard for them to do it.