I noticed that you promoted the petition for Facebook to remove "fat" as a feeling, so I thought that maybe it'd be okay for me to bring something up that's kind of related. On Reddit there is a sub called r/fatpeoplehate with 99,500 subscribers. The main purpose of this subreddit is to make fun of fat people. They post creepshots & leave hate and harassment towards people who probably don't even know they're being made fun of. Is there anything any of us can do to get this taken down?

TW for harassment, stalking, threat

Hi there! This is the least favorite answer I’ve had to give in ages, but as Larry Moore says on The Nightly Show, I need to “keep it 100″.

Can feminists stop the raging misogyny and harassment on reddit?

Answer: No, not really - not in the short term.

Why: the misogynist wing of the hacker community has:

- Too many tools that allow them to find and seriously f*ck with anyone who messes with them. Even if you are trying to protect your online identity, VERY few people can’t be identified and exposed by hackers, and then your entire family’s photos, addresses, school info, work info, etc. are being doxxed and shared to pastebin where it’s duplicated across the web and you can never take it down. And God forbid you have any photos or emails etc. that you don’t want your entire family to see. IF you get hacked they’re going to see them. It’s entirely possible for you to get hacked and have your life MAJORLY messed with in ways that can take years or decades to undo.

- Too many people with too much hate and too much time on their hands.

This is like fighting the hydra if the hydra had a nuclear bomb, fire breath and laser-guided missiles.

Look at GamerGate. Feminists who were NOT being extreme, who were being extremely reasonable, merely CRITICIZED the 4chan and reddit communities, and they’ve had to FLEE THEIR HOUSES FOR THEIR SAFETY due to swatting, stalking, published addresses, threats.

These are people that have a LOT of supporters, connections and influence. And they’re on the run. The women and men who ARE continuing to fight the GG/4chan/8chan/reddit misogynists are heroes, but the aspect of heroism which is “put your life and safety on the line for the cause,” I don’t recommend to my readers as a normal course of action. Live to fight the patriarchy another day.

If you or anyone you know is becoming the target of a serious online attack, go to Crash Override Network: http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com

Then what do we do?

- Don’t feed the trolls. There is SO much good that you can do for women, LGBTQIA+, people of color, all of the above, without having to head into troll-land and start fighting them. You can waste hours arguing on Reddit, or you can post great content and ideas to Tumblr that will help people worldwide of every age/race/gender. You can provide resources and useful info and links. You can give good feedback and support. There is so much good to be done just on Tumblr, I personally choose to focus on the people who ARE interested in feminism. There are a TON of them, let me tell you!

- Changing Reddit. For people that like reddit and want to reform it, remember this is the website that won’t take down Nazi and Jailbait forums, you are going to have a hard time here. But that doesn’t mean give up, I just can’t tell you how to fix it. This is going to take a lot of research and activism on your part, which sadly will expose you to the problem we’re talking about in the first place - you’ll get a target on your back from one of the the most effective and brutal virtual armies out there.

- Change the culture. Hatemongers and misogynists on reddit didn’t start their bigotry on reddit. We need to work on message and values change for children, in education, in popular culture. By the time a person is old enough and misogynistic enough to be committing their time to harassing and attacking feminists, the amount of time and energy it takes to change them could be better spent on other audiences.

There’s more to say here, and I know it’s frustrating but I hope this helps you figure out your feminist strategy!