Twitter and sexual harassment - help or advice (for friends) wanted!

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Hey, you guys.

I have a friend who is a writer, so her name and image are in the public domain. Someone has started a fake twitter account, using her name and photo, and tweets awful rapey things about her using it (like "I'm a big slut and I should be raped" kind of content, but more graphic). Twitter suspended the account briefly and then let it go back up.

I'm sure I've read stuff before about how awful twitter is at taking action on this, and I'm searching for it, but I thought I'd also post here and ask if anyone has experience with dealing with Twitter that's been effective?

(I also have another friend who is the target of a Wordpress blog where the comments are filled with sexual violence threats against her, and Wordpress won't do anything, so this is the week for it it seems)

Are the police involved? They seem to be taking this kind of thing more seriously nowadays. I think it counts as a hate crime.

I would involve the police if I were her.

If they are in the UK they should definitely get the police involved.

US, and they don't seem to be interested. The blog owner is anonymous (of course), so they're just shrugging.

It's one of those systemic things, harassment of women on the internets, and yet there's no clear approach to tackling it.

Best bet is getting another site to take it up, like Jezebel. I seem to remember there was some success with troll-shaming and identification on reddit. They don't like it up 'em, these trolly bastards.

I'd be inclined to round up all my mates for a massive mock-the-troll fest. Though if anyone's using her actual name it might be worth a chat with a solicitor about misrepresentation/defamation.
And if there is anything that suggest serious intent to assault, have a word with the police. But otherwise, laughing at them is not a bad way to go.