Photo: Maria de Vera
Earlier today a letter published by Amnesty International UK and signed by the likes of Lauren Mayberry of CHVRCHES, Dr. Helen Parkhurst, Caroline Lucas MP, Sophie Walker, Leomie Anderson and several other women’s right organizations, celebrities and activists who have called upon Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey to help combat violence and abuse against women on the social media platform.
An excerpt from the letter to Dorsey follows. Click here to read in full.
“Twitter is failing us. It’s a toxic place for many women; a place where too many of us feel unsafe. It’s a place where the trolls are winning and where violence and abuse against women is rife.
Every day on Twitter women are receiving misogynistic abuse and threats of physical and sexual violence.
Online trolls are using your platform to try and belittle, shame, intimidate, harass and silence us.
Our bodies, race, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, disabilities and opinions – our very identities - are the target of violence.”
Unfortunately, no stranger to online abuse, Mayberry has confronted these issues head-on several times in the past. In 2013 she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in which she stated, “I will not accept online misogyny” and then in 2015 spoke to Channel 4 News about misogynist trolls after being the target of the 4chan community.
In this day and age, it’s quite sad that anyone has to be subjected to such abuse but it’s a reality that many face in the digital world in which we live these days. Awareness and discussion is a great starting point and we hope initiatives like this letter to Twitter will convince companies to be more proactive in providing a safer environment for their users.
Please visit www.amnesty.org.uk/toxictwitter to email Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey that he must clean up #ToxicTwitter.
An excerpt from the letter to Dorsey follows. Click here to read in full.
“Twitter is failing us. It’s a toxic place for many women; a place where too many of us feel unsafe. It’s a place where the trolls are winning and where violence and abuse against women is rife.
Every day on Twitter women are receiving misogynistic abuse and threats of physical and sexual violence.
Online trolls are using your platform to try and belittle, shame, intimidate, harass and silence us.
Our bodies, race, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, disabilities and opinions – our very identities - are the target of violence.”
Unfortunately, no stranger to online abuse, Mayberry has confronted these issues head-on several times in the past. In 2013 she wrote an op-ed for The Guardian in which she stated, “I will not accept online misogyny” and then in 2015 spoke to Channel 4 News about misogynist trolls after being the target of the 4chan community.
In this day and age, it’s quite sad that anyone has to be subjected to such abuse but it’s a reality that many face in the digital world in which we live these days. Awareness and discussion is a great starting point and we hope initiatives like this letter to Twitter will convince companies to be more proactive in providing a safer environment for their users.
Please visit www.amnesty.org.uk/toxictwitter to email Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey that he must clean up #ToxicTwitter.
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