#TOXICTWITTER AND THE SILENCING OF WOMEN ONLINE Social media allows SELF-CENSORSHIP people around the Many women who spoke to Amnesty International as part of our research on world to express issue said that violence and abuse themselves by debating, this flourish on the social media platform networking and sharing Twitter, often with little accountability. The violence and abuse many women information. Yet, in experience on Twitter has a detrimental effect on their right to express themselves 2018, women have equally, freely and without fear. Instead been increasingly vocal of strengthening women’s voices, these about a particular threat experiences lead women to self-censor what they post and limit their interactions to their right to freedom online. In some cases, it drives women away from Twitter completely. of expression on social media platforms: the At a watershed moment when women the world are using their collective proliferation of violence around power to speak out and amplify their and abuse online. voices through social media platforms, Twitter is failing to adequately respect human rights and effectively tackle violence and abuse on its platform. This means that, instead of women using their voices to create change in the world, many are being pushed backwards towards a culture of silence. Violence and abuse against women on Twitter takes various forms, including direct or indirect threats of physical or sexual violence; abuse targeting one or more aspects of a woman’s identity, such as racism or transphobia; targeted harassment; privacy violations such as doxing (uploading private identifying information publicly to cause alarm or distress); and the sharing of sexual or intimate images of a woman without her consent. The aim of this violence and abuse is to create a hostile online environment for women with the goal of shaming, intimidating, degrading, belittling and ultimately silencing them. This year, Amnesty International acted to address this dangerous trend which threatens the ability of women to participate freely in the public realm. Amnesty’s International’s report #ToxicTwitter: Violence and abuse against women online, found that women are targeted with violence and abuse on Twitter for a variety of reasons. 6
Sometimes it is for speaking out about certain – often feminist – issues. Sometimes it is because they are public figures. Although people of all genders can experience violence and abuse online, the abuse experienced by women is often sexist or misogynistic in nature, and online threats of violence against women are often sexualized and include specific references to women’s bodies. Women who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination offline often find that violence and abuse online also targets their different identities. Non-binary people can also face targeted and misogynistic abuse online for not conforming to gender norms. Twitter’s policies on hateful conduct and abuse are designed to provide guidance and clarity on which behaviours the company deems acceptable on the platform. However, although Twitter’s “hateful conduct policy” covers many forms of abuse that affect women’s rights, it means little for women on Twitter if such policies are not consistently enforced in practice. Many women told Amnesty International that when they report abuse on Twitter it is often met with inaction and silence from the company. One of the most pernicious impacts of the combination of inaction and inconsistency in responding to reports of abuse is the detrimental effect this has on women reporting such experiences in the future. Women who are the targets of abuse bear the burden of reporting it. This not only takes time, but also takes an emotional toll on women. When women have – or hear of other people having – negative experiences reporting abuse to Twitter, they are less likely to undertake the effort of reporting it. Twitter should be assessing, on an ongoing and proactive basis, how its policies and practices affect users’ rights to freedom of expression and opinion as well as other rights, and taking steps to mitigate or prevent any possible negative impact. It is also critical that Twitter is transparent about its policies and practices and the steps it is taking to identify and address human rights abuses.
