Recently, I had the opportunity to showcase the short documentary "Viral, Sial!" in Indonesia, which was produced for the Freedom Film Festival 2015 with the support of various organisations, including Projek Dialog.

The plan was to talk about online gender-based violence (OGBV) and "Viral, Sial!" talks about it by featuring the story of Aisyah Tajuddin, the former BFM radio presenter who suffered severe online abuse and harassment after a video of her criticising the political situation in Kelantan went viral.

This isn't the first time I helped to organise a screening of the film, and be a resource person during the discussion, but one thing that happens every single time I do this never seems to diminish: I recall the trauma of my own experience with OGBV.

What happened to Aisyah Tajuddin was a national-scale public condemnation and persecution of not just her views, but her body. It was a deliberate act of online violence targeted not only at humiliating, but also annihilating her entire existence.

Unfortunately, in the case of Aisyah, they succeeded. Today, Aisyah has completely exited the public sphere. We have never heard from her again.

Women find themselves in these unforgiving social circumstances so often that it demonstrates the higher barrier for social penetration for women compared to men.

When I first watched Aisyah’s video, it hadn't gone viral yet. But it only took a few minutes for me to have a bad feeling about the public reaction towards it.

"This is gonna be bad," I remember thinking to myself, and already I could sense a shiver down my spine.

As someone who has been on the receiving end of OGBV countless times, my "Spidey sense" tingled. 

I feared for Aisyah's safety almost immediately, and I sent her a text to assure her that she has a friend.

But I did not get this instinct by accident.

Fear of speaking up

Years before my Facebook post about eating in public during Ramadan went viral in 2016, I have learned on many occasions how outspoken young women are punished for voicing their opinions.

The two things that often work against us are the facts that firstly, we are female, and secondly, we are under 30 years old.

Society tends to be more accepting of outspoken older women (although this isn’t always the case), especially those who are married with children, perhaps because they are deemed to have gone through the appropriate social rites of womanhood to gain the right to express bold views.

The easiest way for women to become public enemy number one is by daring to challenge existing patriarchal structures that hold us back from the social acceptance of our different views, the education we want to obtain, the careers we want to pursue, or even just living a life free of wifely duties and motherhood.

After what happened to Aisyah, I could see other young women being afraid to speak up, for they now censor themselves in order to be saved from the gruesome judgment of the public.

However, the true culprits are even more insidious than the tyranny of the majority itself. They are the fitnah-mongers of online gossip sites that deliberately fan the flames of public anger against women online.

These sites deliberately use clickbait titles to incite the anger of the mob for the sake of viral marketing, earning them tens of thousands of ringgit per post from the sheer number of likes, shares and comments.

I call them fitnah-mongers because that is exactly what they are, they sell fitnah (false accusations) for a living.

How can these heartless people behind those computer screens not feel any sense of remorse for the violence they commit towards women, every day?

How can they not be accountable for the death and rape threats we get when they post articles with not only false translations of our actual messages, but also inciteful messages urging the public to go after us for the crime of "insulting Islam"?

They might as well be the very person punching us in the face, or hurling verbal insults at us, making it unsafe for women to voice critical opinions.

Online versus physical violence

Every time I see another article by the fitnah-mongers I ask God not to withhold and delay their punishment, for I do not forgive them for their crimes, as they do not deserve such kindness.

Emotionally crippled and physically dysfunctional, I was left in this state of mind for months after experiencing OGBV last year. I am not surprised at all that Aisyah was so traumatised that she completely exited the public sphere.

It seems to me that a lot of people do not believe online violence can do just as much harm as physical violence, if not worse. At least with physical violence you get to bring your assaulter to trial, but without a law against online abuse and harassment, there is no way for victims of online violence to seek justice.

I had to be in therapy for six months, only because I was so lucky to be a part of an organisation that financially supports its staff for mental health contingencies.

Not many non-profit organisations, especially those working in the field of human rights, get such support. Human rights workers often have to fend for themselves when the mob comes for them, a job hazard that comes with more than just monetary costs.

Surely, I am not the only victim of character assassination by these unethical sites. For the sake of profit, the inhumane people behind these sites that made women like Aisyah disappear, or women like me psychologically scarred, are more than just irresponsible, they are jahat (evil).

Aside from feeding a readily angry mob with false information, they are indeed responsible for the targets on our backs.

God forbid that the online violence ever leads to someone finding my dead body on the streets. Let it be said now that I would never forgive the people behind those sites, and may the public be as unforgiving to violence as they are to women who speak.

MARYAM LEE is a writer with a chronic tendency of getting into trouble. What she lacks in spelling when writing in English is made up for with her many writings in Bahasa Malaysia. She believes in conversations as the most valuable yet underrated cause of social change. She wants people to recognise silences and give them a voice, as she tries to bring people together through words.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.