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No Girls Allowed: File Sharing Culture and BitTorrent

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

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.
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Video Language:
English
Team:
Feminist Frequency
Duration:
03:23

English subtitles

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