Like Green party politician Robert Habeck, who last week quit the social media platform after a massive data breach, I've had a hard time with the way I voice my opinions there. The more time I spend on the platform, the worse my mood becomes. Yet it's begun to feel nearly impossible to even do that. Initially, I had been using my feed mainly as a way of staying in touch with friends and editors around the world, posting dumb jokes or promoting an article I'd written. Indeed, it's the notion of freely expressing myself online that I've struggled with in the years since my first deactivation. The company's failure to meet its responsibilities regarding violence and abuse means that many women are no longer able to express themselves freely on the platform without fear of violence or abuse," writes Amnesty. "Overall, our findings paint a worrying picture that Twitter can be a toxic place for its female users. "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," the report states. The harassment some women face on the platform even led Amnesty International to conduct a two-year study, the findings of which were released in late 2018 under the heading #ToxicTwitter. Already in 2014, a handbook from the International Association of Women in Radio and Television reported that women received three times as much abuse on Twitter as their male counterparts. And it seems to have only gotten worse, especially for women, in recent years. Still, it hasn't been easy for me - or my fellow journalists - to remain on the platform. By giving up Twitter, I was taking a risk: If I left completely, anyone could have created a handle in my name or taken over the one I'd previously used, adopting my likeness.īefore the month was up and the deactivation turned into a permanent deletion of the account, I logged back in.
When they didn't stop, I deactivated my account.Īs a writer, I knew that deactivating my Twitter account wasn't ideal. Not only do we in the media use the platform to look for stories, we also use it to promote our own work. Instead of having to endure their rhetorical threats, I deleted the tweet. Men, most of whom had set their location in the UK, many of whom had anonymous profiles, had followed the hashtag and begun tweeting xenophobic, misogynistic comments at me. Three days later, the harassment started. I translated the German headline into English for my followers and included #cologne the tweet got less than a dozen likes before it slid down my timeline. The first time I deleted Twitter was in January 2016 - and no, it wasn't because I'd made a New Year's resolution to spend less time online.Īs a freelance journalist who has often written on women's issues, I had read a short article in the local newspaper noting that women had been attacked at the Cologne train station on New Year's Eve.