Only 16 per cent of people in the UK are on Twitter, yet I am asked at least once a week – by journalists, publicists and occasionally actual people – why I’m not among them. The default setting of Twitter users is to assume that there’s no reason why anyone wouldn’t be on Twitter. But as Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez have shown this week, there are some excellent reasons to avoid it like the snake pit it can be.
As an MP, Creasy probably has to be on Twitter. It’s the way politics now works: as membership of political parties disintegrates, it’s one way to raise your profile, especially among younger voters. But that accessibility is precisely what enables crazy people to contact her directly, threatening her with rape, murder, and various combinations of the two. Criado-Perez also operates in a political sphere: she’s a campaigner and runs a website. This is what Twitter is good for: raising awareness, driving net traffic. But the price she had to pay for that was receiving 50 rape threats in an hour.
Even if you’re not working in politics but merely offering an opinion in a public place, you can be on the receiving end of this kind of aggression. Mary Beard remains a devoted tweeter, in spite of receiving abuse after an appearance on Question Time which included the odd death threat. Frankly, I can do without that level of harassment in my life. If this changes, I’ll get the night bus one evening (which I’m confident can provide me with similar charmless behaviour from people I don’t know). Full story...
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As an MP, Creasy probably has to be on Twitter. It’s the way politics now works: as membership of political parties disintegrates, it’s one way to raise your profile, especially among younger voters. But that accessibility is precisely what enables crazy people to contact her directly, threatening her with rape, murder, and various combinations of the two. Criado-Perez also operates in a political sphere: she’s a campaigner and runs a website. This is what Twitter is good for: raising awareness, driving net traffic. But the price she had to pay for that was receiving 50 rape threats in an hour.
Even if you’re not working in politics but merely offering an opinion in a public place, you can be on the receiving end of this kind of aggression. Mary Beard remains a devoted tweeter, in spite of receiving abuse after an appearance on Question Time which included the odd death threat. Frankly, I can do without that level of harassment in my life. If this changes, I’ll get the night bus one evening (which I’m confident can provide me with similar charmless behaviour from people I don’t know). Full story...
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