ISLAMABAD – Twitter toxic to women? The recent report of the AmnestyInternational, based on a survey with 1,100 British women, *Toxic Twitter*,examines the “scale, nature and impact of violence and abuse directedtowards women on Twitter. Every day, women face violent threats, sexism,racism and more on Twitter. This abuse is flooding Twitter, forcing womenout of public conversations – and at times, driving them off the platform.The abuse can be more intense for women of colour, women with disabilities;lesbian, bisexual, trans women, and non-binary people.”
The hashtag #ToxicTwitter gaining momentum is a new topic of media debate.Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey earlier this month said that his company[Twitter] has “witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulationthrough bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns, andincreasingly divisive echo chambers.”
I’ve been a victim of online trolling, hate, abuse, harassment,misinformation and threats; you name it, and it has been done to me. And Isurvived it all, doing what most of us who face online trolling and abusedo: laugh, ignore, mute, block. It all started in January 2014 when my namebecame part of a “sensational” Twitter fight. Over a period of two dayswhat I experienced left me shocked, at times bemused, but mostly, verydisturbed.
To see my name in TV tickers, Twitter timelines and newspaper headlines wasdisturbing on so many levels it makes me recoil in shock and horror eventoday. I was accused of being a spy, an adulteress, a home-wrecker, andlater, a desperate woman, a stalker, a woman with loose morals. All thosetags were given to me by a woman, and all I did in response was either staysilent, or answer in mockery. Before and since those two days, I’ve neverattacked a woman’s character or her choices. What I faced then, and do evennow, albeit very rarely, when I was abused and hated on Twitter, theinitiator was a woman. Most of those who supported her were also women.
Not many had the moral courage to say personal fights were not to be wagedon Twitter. Not many questioned the validity of accusations. Not many feltany discomfort seeing unverified accusations on a woman by another woman.Not many men did the right thing. And not many women did the right thing.
Now four years later I look back at it all, and it still makes me go stillwithin. What happened to me was the stuff of online nightmares, and itcontinued for days, weeks, months, in varying degrees, with alteringintensity. Shock and grief make people react in strange ways, and lashingout at strangers on Twitter without knowing facts, without verification ofinformation, without covering all sides has become the new norm ofexpression of sorrow and rage. There are no rules, there are no limits, andthere is only one endgame: annihilation. Not all of us give in, not all ofus are destroyed, but the toll it all takes is something that takes away agreat deal of the trust you once had in the goodness of people. Most of thetime, you never learn to trust again. The new wary, cautious self moves on,making its own rules of existence on Twitter. And in my case, all of themhave worked, positively, and almost consistently.
I survived online abuse and harassment to become stronger. And unlike howmost people react in such situations, I learnt to be more patient, moreforgiving, and perhaps, a tad nicer.
My Twitter existence – my main form of interaction with the world as awoman with opinions, a columnist, an infrequent TV commentator and anauthor – primarily works on one simple rule: I am on Twitter as I amoff-Twitter. I like people, I’m a glass half-full type of a person, I don’tget into fights with people I’m friends with or stop being friends with, Idon’t shred to bits people I once knew, I take responsibility for all myactions, I love animals, I love books, movies and TV shows, I care aboutrefugees, and people’s pain makes me cry. Most importantly, I don’t abuseanyone, and I don’t attack anyone ad hominem. My son, 18, told me to ignoreand not engage with trolls and abusers when he was 12. I didn’t take hisadvice very seriously, but once I started to, my Twitter life became justwhat it should be: a platform where I can access ideas and information fromacross the globe, and reach out to people. Twitter connects, and no amountof virtual bad would ever undo the huge good that Twitter does.
The only reason why I decided to write this today is simple: if Twittertoday is toxic it is NOT only because of the bad stuff men do online towomen. Other than threats of rape and violence, there are not many thingsthat men practise online that are not supported, endorsed, promoted andhailed by legions of women. I won’t even quote examples of internationalwomen celebrities who have faced brutal online trolling, I’ll simply stickto my own example. I am an ordinary woman who because of a tremendouslytragic event became a known name to people, and the aftermath wasinexplicable. The amount of graciousness, warmth, positivity, empathy andfriendship I received from strangers has been an equaliser for the abuse,hatred and name-calling that was thrown my way. What I noticed: eachabusive tweet from a man was hailed, retweeted and liked by not just hislike-minded flocks of men but by many women. That is how toxic Twitterbecomes doubly toxic.
And they are not all unknown women, anonymous females. They arecelebrities, writers, women rights activists (O the irony!), politicians,wannabe politicians, journalists, housewives, students, and I’ve been atthe receiving end of the vitriol of all of them, hence making this notsomething that happened to so and so but a firsthand account. I question apolitical ideology, I am a sl*t. I criticise an unsubstantiated attack onsomeone, I am a wh*re. I object to someone’s trashing of someone, I am ahome-wrecker. I object to gratuitous belligerence of some Indian politicianor journalist towards Pakistan, I’m a spy. I advise someone not to useinflammatory language about/with a fellow Pakistani, I am the one who hadan “affair” with an Indian politician. Tags linger.
And all of this is done not just by men but also by women. Toxicity onTwitter may be engineered by males’ no-rules warfare against all who opposetheir ideas, but – other than in cases of threats of death, rape, violence– in its exacerbation is the also the hand of women.
The toxicity is fought in myriad ways. While Twitter should simply suspendfor good accounts with threats of sexual and physical violence, the rest ismostly stuff we see every day and are well-equipped to deal with. I poke mynose, or in the case of Twitter my words, into tweets that demean or attackwomen. I argue with people from both genders not to abuse anyone. I mute,block or report people I see engaging in abusive behaviour with anyone,even people I’ve never heard of, people I don’t know. I make it a rule notto answer abuse with abuse. And that goes for everyone I see online.
Women will only be able to rid Twitter of its toxicity if they are *not*partof the problem. Women movements like Me Too and Time’s Up gained momentumwhen women united to fight the taboos of silence and shame. While waitingfor men to change, to not abuse, harass, threaten, and target women online,*what* women can do is change the way they deal with the bad online.Courage is not being abusive. Freedom of expression is not giving it backas viciously as possible. Standing up for your rights does not requirestooping low. Fighting for your rights is an act of nobility that does notmean stripping yourself of your dignity, your values.
An abuse for an abuse is making Twitter toxic. Do you, as a man, pledge todo your part to not let “men will be men?” Do you, as a woman, pledge to doyour part to stop men from sullying the nobility of a fabulous platformthat provides space for engagement, discussion and debate, spreads themessage of empathy, raises awareness for causes ignored by mainstreammedia, and connects people in pain and joy? All you need to do is not dowhat you see others do, what men do.
Dignity of expression and grace in disagreement, one tweet at a time, asyour own statement, as a reaction, as an argument, or as a tool to stopsomeone from abuse, and before you know it your toxic Twitter will be onits way to reformation, recovery and rehabilitation.
By: Mehr Tarar