Following my very recent blog post, REPORT MEMBER ABUSE, the poll on the reasons that members report other members to the site yielded some interesting findings, or at least interesting to me.
As of today, 132 people voted - 91 men, 23 women, 15 couples and 3 transpersons. For this site, this is a relatively high turnout.
Of the 18 reasons listed in the poll, here are the percentage shares of respondents voting for each reason, presented in descending order of popularity: scamming (67%), illegal content (62%), underage sex (61%), abuse (60%), harassment/stalking (59%), non-consensual sex (58%), promotion of hatred/violence (49%), fake photos (40%), racism (40%), advertising (33%), incest (33%), revenge (30%), libel/defamation (20%), contact details revealed (16%), obscenity (15%), misogyny/sexism (13%), copyright infringement (11%), and other reasons (4%).
Some of these findings were quite surprising. I was very surprised that scamming came out as the most popular reason why members report others to the site. I didn't even vote scamming as a reason for me reporting a member to the site. But this probably says more about me, as a blogger only on the site I don't come across many scams.
As a bleeding heart liberal, I was shocked less than half of respondents would report other members for the promotion of hatred/violence, racism, and misogyny/sexism. And only a third of respondents would report a member for incest (though nearly two-thirds would report a member for illegal content which includes incest). Again these findings probably say something more about me than people responding to the poll.
It seems that members, unlike the site, aren't that bothered about advertising, libel/defamation, contact details revealed, obscenity (whatever that means), and copyright infringement.
The poll results are most interesting when comparing the responses of men and women. (It's relatively pointless me widening the comparison out to couples and transpersons because of their relatively low numbers responding to the poll.)
For men, the most popular reasons (with percentage share of respondents) to report members to the site are: scamming (73%), illegal content (66%), underage sex (64%), non-consensual sex (62%), harassment/stalking (56%), and abuse (52%).
For women, the most popular reasons are: abuse (83%), harassment/stalking (61%), scamming (52%), underage sex (52%), non-consensual sex (48%), and illegal content (48%).
The reasons for reporting other members to the site are significantly different between men and women. It doesn't surprise me that proportionately more women (83%) than men (52%) have reported members to the site for abuse, and it doesn't surprise me that proportionately more men (73%) than woman (52%) have reported members to the site for scamming.
Furthermore, proportionately more women (65%) than men (35%) have reported members and/or violation of the site's terms of use. Quel surpris!
Finally, on a depressing note, twice as many men (14%) as women (7%) will report members to the site for misogyny/sexism. Does this mean misogyny and sexism has become so normalised that it's to be expected and even tolerated?! I can see the days of bleeding heart liberals being quite numbered! I'm now getting into practice for this norm - I'm now thinking of titling my next blog post, 'Yo bitch, get your tits out and suck my dick now'. (I can't see this working well!)
PS. In a slight irony on my blog post about abuse, one member decided to leave an 'abusive' comment. I knew one fool would! He accused me of being a liberal - guilty m'lud. (It's only since blogging on this site that I know being called a liberal by an American is an insult.) And then the fool claimed that in Britain someone will get a longer prison sentence if they complained about "mass islamic immigration" than if they r+ped someone. His claim is simply not true. I wonder what world he's living on! I'm itching to come back at him but I'm restraining myself!
11
13 comments
I think for most of us, there is a fair amount of exhaustion with the various transgressions and people pick their battles. Which would be why most of us don't bother to report racism, sexism, etc.
I pick my battles too. I tend to report abuse if posted on my blog or in reply to my comments left on other people's blog posts.
I don't report others to the site often not least because very little or nothing seems to come of it.
I think there is probably some skewing of the results by the perceived likelihood the offense will occur. I see fake scam profiles everyday. If I was interested in a woman, she's probably not going to rape me. Reporting a rape in reality I'm sure would be near 100%. Perception that that is a possibility to the typical hetero male is very low.
Regarding r+pe, where it gets fuzzy is members recounting r+pe in the past and, even fuzzier, members writing an 'erotic' story about r+pe.
Interesting results. I'm surprised that "scamming" is the top reason for reporting, since I don't experience it myself. I would have thought it was because I'm a woman, even though I interact very actively with other users not only in the Community but also in the dating section. But I see that other women do experience it, as that 52% figure indicates.
I think men are the main but not the only targets for scammers.
I don't come across scammers often but I'm not active on the Dating side.
"Finally, on a depressing note, twice as many men (14%) as women (7%) will report members to the site for misogyny/sexism. Does this mean misogyny and sexism has become so normalised that it's to be expected and even tolerated?!"
Don't be depressed. Remember that 83% abuse part? Misogyny/sexism falls under that category most times.
That's a fair point. My depression is lifting!
Regarding your findings about misogyny/sexism being reported twice as much by men as by women and you wondered why this might be so.
As a regular user of the chat rooms on the dating side, I can offer this little bit of insight, though it is just my opinion: when a guy comes into the chat room (most likely he's never been there before) and announces to all females present in the room 'Yo bitch, get your tits out and suck my dick now'...(sometimes that is addressed to just one female in particular) (that is actually a mild form of what some guys say in the room), most of the regular male chatters in the room will rise up and defend the 'honor' of most of the women in the room. And at least one will declare he is reporting this intruder to the abuse team. The women are not just sitting back, being silent however. They give this intruder a big piece of their minds and the drama begins.
This intruder invariably is angry...after all, this is a sex site and the chat room we are in is called the cybersex room. And, most of the women in the room do have naked pics of themselves in their profiles. Plus, a couple of years ago, the site was advertising this as an Instant Hookup site. I saw the ads myself. All good reasons, in his mind, to demand satisfaction from any and all women in the room.
We remind him 1) this is also a chat room and if he paid any attention to the chat going on in the room, he would see we were not chatting about sex. That being said, I was called a 'twat' for expecting these horndogs to take a few seconds to read the room before posting anything. 2) Having naked pics on our profiles does not give anyone permission to be crude. Some women like that crudeness...a reason to read the room and see if there are women who might give him what he wants. 3) This is not an Instant Hookup site, never was.
It doesn't take long before this intruder chooses to leave and we rarely see him again. If he does come back, most of us just sigh, remind everyone who he is and we block him.
You also have to remember that the ratio of guys to women on this site are at least 50 guys to 1 woman.
Thanks for the poll, it was very enlightening!
Thanks for your insights about misogyny/sexism on this site. I agree with you that a lot of misogyny/sexism comes from men feeling a sense of entitlement. The site doesn't do too much to stop men feeling entitled.
I was using percentages and not numbers when claiming that proportionately twice as many men than women report members for misogyny/sexism. That should get round the problem of comparing men and women when there are far more men than women on the site.
I guess I don't get around much. OH SURE, I've seen some content I deemed questionable, but really not all that often.
Good decision Spunky! As I've said before "Don't feed the trolls".
I like to feed the trolls with poisoned food!
Thanks for sharing your poll results with us. As I am NOT surprised about how members voted. I get emails every single day telling me how members are being scammed. And the harassment of women hasn't changed since I joined the site over 20 + years ago. This should tell the site what is going on so they can make the appropriate changes, but in saying that I don't think anything will change.
I hope your Thursday continues to treat you well my friend.
I get the impression the site's priorities aren't members' priorities!
At one point, didn't Andrew proclaim to all of us that he had, in fact, made changes to the system so that scammers were now down by like 70 percent? However, he never did provide data as to how he accomplished that task.
@AmyGood4Mea It was the CEO who made that claim and presented a nonsense graph to back it up.
He seems to have disappeared from view of late.