Rape Threats on Twitter

[BitBewildered]

I've just seen this story on the BBC news app. I've not been on Twitter very much lately and am off to have a look now, but at first glance, what the actual fuck?!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23477130

Stella Creasey just rocked on Newsnight. Toby Young looked like the idiot he is. She wiped the floor with him.

She was very good!

She was brilliant. Not that it is hard to make Toby Young look like a prat - he manages that perfectly well all by himself but she was excellent.

(I can't forgive Toby Young for telling everyone how his school would have a fair admissions policy and that even his kids wouldn't be gaurenteed a place. He said ths a MILLION times.....and then he got things changed so his kids were guaranteed a place. It was a sharp and dishonest thing to do)

'She wiped the floor with him.'

Someone should bleach that.

Going to watch it on iplayer.

Anyone remember the thread by Getting Big on the Relationship threads last year?
If we bring in rules that mean everyone has to use their real names and someone in a similar situation posts to get advice...oh wait they are not going to are they.
If ppl have to use their real names on Twitter it will stop a lot of people who have escaped abusive relationships from using the site. And the rules will go for other websites too.
The Blog of the Day is right....we need a cultural shift.

Newsnight

Has someone suggested that Darkest? Because that really would be nuts. Also wouldn't happen, in theory FB only allows you to use real names, and I know that doesn't happen!

A few ppl on Twitter were bandying the idea about Some really need to #checktheirprivilege.

www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/twitterau-it-s-time-for-a-zero-tolerance-to-rape-threats-policy?utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition

Everybody seen this?

Erm...apologies if this has been mentioned, but rather than Twitter itself being the issue and it needing it take action over abusive tweets, isn't the crux of the issue the reason for the abuse? Why on earth do some men get so worked up about women being high profile? Has it got worse recently? Or has it always been the case but social media is now giving it an outlet? What is the reason for the fear and hatred of half the world's population? It's so peculiar to me, I can't get my head round it at all.

Ah, sorry I see this has kind of been talked about. Just reading the link now....

More recent twitter threats

I'm personally in favour of taking twitter down.

Bloody hell Sigmund! They're a bit cross aren't they?

Crazy stuff! I know it would never happen, but I think if people had to lose their anonymity online, it would pretty much be the end of this culture of vile threats. Just think how different even forums like MN would be!

There would be a lot less people 'telling it like it is', let alone anything else.

Wow. Some One Direction fans are unhinged.

And there would be a lot less ppl posting to get advice while in an abusive relationship Sigmund.
Imagine an abusive partner finds out their spouse has posted on an internet forum to get advice (thats if theyve been brave enough to post in their real name in the first place but hey if thats all there is) Abusers dont tend to like being ratted out and tend to lose their temper with an obvious outcome #checkyourprivilege

"but I think if people had to lose their anonymity online, it would pretty much be the end of this culture of vile threats"

Some of the people sending threats have been doing so under their real names.

Yes it's just a handful of men but it's ALL women who remain afraid - afraid of speaking out, afraid of doing anything remotely feminist - because we don't know which ones are the "nutters", which ones are decent men or which ones don't really care.

Many women (myself included) don't regard themselves as professional victims actually.

Why on earth do some men get so worked up about women being high profile?

Women don't have a monopoly on victimhood. Much in the same way that trollery isn't solely a male affliction. And for the record, men are also subjected to online abuse, threats etc. But of course, we're conditioned to think otherwise.

Moistenedbint.

I don't think of myself as a professional victim either. Unfortunately, it's not down to what I think. It's what my attacker thought, and did, that makes me a victim. It seems like you think it's somehow shameful or weak to be a victim of someone else's criminal actions? Which is illogical, at best.

Women don't have the monopoly on anything really. But this thread is about online threats of sexual violence. In the context of a society in which one in four women experience sexual violence, and it usually goes unpunished, it's a distinctive dynamic to explore. Differences/similarities/comparisons to RL interactions etc

Interesting name btw

It is certainly not just women who feel the brunt of the twitter fuckwittage - as mum to a special needs kid, I saw real bile and vicious "retard/mong" type insults unleashed recently by those charming wits, Ricky Gervais and Franke Boyle. These trolls will have a go at anyone for shock value, safe behind their cowardly pseudonyms

Wish Twitter would install a "100 reports and you are outed" button

moistened So in context of this thread, what exactly is your point? That women getting rape threats should put up and shut up because men get threats too?

Yup, it's people in less privileged groups.
The men who I have seen get it include disabled men, gay men, and Muslims.

I haven't seen anything like the same type of abuse directed at straight white non-disabled men though. Being laughed at for being a public schoolboy and bald is really not the same, though some of the more obtuse ones will claim it is.

'100 reports and you are outed' would just become a vehicle for bullying. It would be used against precisely the people we want to protect. The trolls, on the other hand, would change sockie account more regularly so they never made it to 100 reports.