No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent
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0:00 - 0:04Computer Love Computer Love
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0:08 - 0:12I'm so sick of porn with my file sharing! What the hell BitTorrent tracker sites?
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0:12 - 0:16BitTorrent is a file sharing protocol used to distribute large files.
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0:16 - 0:20So instead of sending the file from one computer to the other which is known as
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0:20 - 0:23peer to peer. What's happening is that everyone whose downloading the file is
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0:23 - 0:28sharing with everyone else. So we're all taking little bits of information and that will
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0:28 - 0:33eventually be compiled into a full file on our computers. It's a really efficient,
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0:33 - 0:37decentralized way of downloading files. It's actually really ingenius.
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0:37 - 0:43But as with most geeky technology, BitTorent tracking sites fill their ad space with
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0:43 - 0:46ads directed at young men, not at people who look like me.
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0:46 - 0:50One way that I can tell is because the ads are either "How to get ripped in 4 weeks!"
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0:50 - 0:55or porn directed specifically at heterosexual young males.
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0:55 - 0:59The images are women being debased and dehumanized to sell advertising for sex sites
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0:59 - 1:04or online dating sites. Some are straight up pornography and others are just using
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1:04 - 1:07pornographic images to entice young men to visit their sites.
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1:07 - 1:12For example the Evony MMO used ads like this which clearly is using women's bodies
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1:12 - 1:17to attacted boys to come play their game except I think their game was like a strategy
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1:17 - 1:21MMO, like it had nothing to do with the women in the advertisements.
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1:21 - 1:26And then these ads are clearly for porn except they are trying to pretend like it's the
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1:26 - 1:28"classiest collection of nude art"
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1:28 - 1:33All of these ads are just using women's bodies to appeal to geeks and gamers.
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1:33 - 1:35People that look like this.
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1:37 - 1:41I just want to file share without being bombarded by naked women and offers to
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1:41 - 1:43meet ladies in my neighbourhood.
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1:43 - 1:47I also don't want to download a virtual stripper who takes her clothes off
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1:47 - 1:50on my desktop. And frankly I'm horrified at the thought of someone turning their
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1:50 - 1:54computer on and having their own virtual stripper do a little dance for them
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1:54 - 1:59everyday. That falls under the fembot category and y'all know how I feel about that.
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1:59 - 2:03There are plenty of techno-geeks who are women so why do these sites insist on
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2:03 - 2:07advertising only to men? That was a rhetorical question. I actually know the
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2:07 - 2:11answer to that. Women are systematically left out of techno-geek culture.
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2:11 - 2:16It's a boys club that's reinforced socially and culturally. It creates a space that is so
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2:16 - 2:19undesirable for women to be in that they don't want to or they aren't give the
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2:19 - 2:21opportunity to participate.
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2:21 - 2:26Just look at the fact that less than 3% of open source programmers are women.
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2:26 - 2:30Or how about the fact that only 13% of wikipedia contributors are women?
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2:30 - 2:34It's not that women aren't interested in technology, it's that there are very real
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2:34 - 2:39barriers for women to get involved and engage. Having ads on the BitTorrent
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2:39 - 2:43tracking sites targeted at a very specific demographic of young hetero sexual males
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2:43 - 2:48alienates and discourages women from participating. And these ads are only a teeny
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2:48 - 2:52tiny little fraction of the intentional and unintentional barriers keeping women out of
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2:52 - 2:53the boys club.
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2:53 - 2:58I like technology and coding and science fiction and open source software and
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3:03 - 3:06And I'm also told that the only place for women in this subculture is to be the
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3:06 - 3:09"hot chick" or maybe the booth babe at a convention.
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3:09 - 3:14We want to be full participants in geek culture and the only way that's going to
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3:14 - 3:17happen is if we dismantle the boys club and tear those barriers down.
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3:18 - 3:21Computer Love Computer Love
- Title:
- No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent
- Description:
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Every time I go to download files from a BitTorrent tracker site I am constantly bombarded with ads for sex/dating sites or straight up pornography and I'm sick of it. Women are engaging in online technologies as well and we are repetitively told that we don't belong.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- Feminist Frequency
- Duration:
- 03:23
Retired user edited English subtitles for No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent | ||
femfreq edited English subtitles for No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent |