This is what I think the organisers of the Twitter Silence think is going on inside the heads of the Trolls, who have been making their lives a misery. The whole issue is very complicated and as a campaign, I believe it has worked because it has started a debate and has caused Twitter to start taking these threats seriously and actually work with the Police, rather than blocking their requests for information (as they were doing). But it was a confused campaign. This isn't surprising. Twitter silence was the idea of Caitlin Moran, who receives hundreds of these threats on Twitter. Caitlin isn't a campaigner or a politician or anyone with any kind of power at all. She is a writer. She writes about music and TV and her experience of what it's like to be a woman and she's very funny. She thought it would be a good idea to encourage everyone to leave Twitter for a day, to show Twitter how fragile their platform is (lets face it Twitter isn't the only social media around and it can't stay being the big thing forever) and to make people start talking about the issue. Many people have been talking about it. A lot of people refused to do it because they said that they weren't going to be silenced because that was giving in to the Trolls. Men started saying, "what about us? We get abuse from Trolls too." and many, many people said, "What's all the fuss about. Why don't they just ignore it?"
You see it's complicated. There are several issues going on but the bottom line is that abuse online is not OK and it should be stopped. If people feel victimised online they should have the right to report it and that report should be taken seriously. They should be able to report it if they are a man, a woman, a child or an alien with three heads. People shouldn't really say anything online that they wouldn't say to someone's face.
No one should give into the bullies. We all know that but it is much easier said than done. If you stick your head above the parapet someone is going to take a shot at it. The easy thing to do is to keep your head down, stop talking, pretend you're not there and keep quiet. Some people get abuse online because they have said something silly or upset someone that somebody likes and I can see that that would be the perfect time to keep your head down. Columnists such as, Samantha Brick, who write articles that are intended to cause controversy sit back and watch the abusive Tweets, rubbing their hands with glee, knowing that their article did what it inteded to do. People who Tweet abuse probably don't complain if they get abuse back. Tommy Richardson of the EDL, for example, Tweets some horrible abuse but what he recieves in return are the most vile threats. I wonder if those people Tweeting him would have the courage to say what they are saying to his face.
Then there is the issue of women and misogyny. I have been struck by the difference in the way men and women are treated online. This is a real thing. It's not just in the heads of 'feminist man haters'. The women who have received abuse are often not saying anything controversial. I'm quite stunned that Mary Beard, who has done nothing more than bang on enthusatically about Caligula and have the audacity to go on question time and say that she brought a mac in Lincoln get such appaling threats daily. Caroline Criado-Perez, whose 24 hours of abuse following Mark Carney's deciscion to put Jane Austin on the bank notes caused Caitlin Moran to call for the Twitter Silence in the first place had done nothing more than write a few letters, articles and organise a few women with plarcards to stand outside the Bank of England pointing out how the removal of Elizabeth Fry from the bank notes meant that there were no female figures from history on them any more. It was a correct observation and although that observation may have made the new governor of the Bank of England reverse the decision of the old governor it was hardly controversial stuff. If she was saying all men should have their bits cut off then the abuse she received might have been explainable. A male journalist, working for Sky, questioned on Twitter where men fit into the debate. He had received abuse when he broke the story of Gordon Brown and the woman he called a bigot. He said it was terrible but he didn't report it. He was called a c***. As far as I can tell, no one threated to bomb him, mutilate his genitals or rape him. The responses he got to this tweet were all of the, "that's terrible mate I had no idea," variety. He didn't have a single, "stop whinging on about it, witch," comment.
What I do know is that not knowing how to solve something is no reason for not talking about it.
In some ways I am encouraged by the discussion following Twitter Silence. People of my daughter's age, both male and female are outraged by what happened to Caroline Criado-Perez. They think that tellling a woman who is expressing an opinion they don't like that what they need is a good stiff cock up them is outrageous. I think there has been a shift in opinions because when I worked in a bank in the eighties I can remember being in a meeting about targets for sales of personal loan insurance and when I said that I thought it would be much better to sell people what they needed rather than just meeting targets my manager put his arm round me and said, "Bless, aren't you getting enough? Maybe I could help out." It shut me up and no one said anything about his terrible behaviour. Not at the time or afterwards. I don't think it would be the same now.
The anonimity of social media is a huge part of the problem. Nobody is real. The abusers are Trolls, the women are Witches, in fact it's all rather like a particularly nasty fairy tale.
