Sexist harassment that occurs online isn’t any less tangible than words shouted on the street as Jezebel’s staffers put it, “We’re here, we’re real, and we matter.” And the problem is compounded in an era when engaging with the masses is part of the online journalist’s job description. Just deleting a vile comment or an abusive account from the internet-which is how Twitter, for example, currently deals with its worst users-doesn’t magically erase its effect on its target. Jezebel’s problem speaks to a larger failure in the concept of moderation: In order for a horrific comment to be removed from public view, a staffer has to see it first. None of us are paid enough to deal with this on a daily basis.” (Full disclosure: I co-wrote last year’s Jezebel-branded book The Book of Jezebel.) But moderation creates another problem for the women who work at these sites: Because Jezebel staffers “are the only ones capable of removing the comments,” the burden of reading (and shutting down) these vile comments shifts to the writers themselves, who are, as the post puts it, “now required to view and interact with violent pornography and gore as part of our jobs. Moderating those comments is a necessary step for fostering an online community where women actually want to hang out. These comments are “profoundly upsetting to our commenters who have the misfortune of starting their day with some excessively violent images” and “to casual readers who drop by to skim Jezebel with their morning coffee only to see hard core pornography at the bottom of a post about Michelle Obama,” Jezebel wrote. The comments section of a women’s website is a magnet for sexist trolling, harassing personal attacks, and-in Jezebel’s extreme case-images of rape and violence.

Gawker rape video