Toxic Twitter: A Toxic Place for Women

As the world becomes increasingly connected online, our reliance on social media platforms such as Twitter has also become increasingly important. But the online world, and social media platforms like Twitter are not immune to many of the human rights abuses that women face offline.

Over the last 16 months, Amnesty International has conducted qualitative and quantitative research about women’s experiences on social media platforms including the scale, nature and impact of violence and abuse directed towards women on Twitter, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). Such abuse includes direct or indirect threats of physical or sexual violence, discriminatory abuse targeting one or more aspects of a woman’s identity, targeted harassment, and privacy violations such as doxing or sharing sexual or intimate images of a woman without her consent.

Over the course of this research, Amnesty International interviewed 86 women both individually and in groups in the UK and USA. We spoke to female politicians, journalists, activists, bloggers, writers, comedians, games developers as well as women who use the platform but do not have a large following. Amnesty International also spoke with dozens of experts in the United Kingdom and United States working in the field of women’s rights, identity-based discrimination, technology, and digital rights about violence and abuse against women on social media platforms. Amnesty International consulted with multiple organizations and individuals, particularly in the UK, when developing our recommendations and solutions for Twitter. The research highlights the particular experiences of violence and abuse on Twitter against women of colour, women from ethnic or religious minorities, lesbian, bisexual or transgender women – as well as non-binary individuals – and women with disabilities, to expose the intersectional nature of abuse on the platform. In November 2017, the organization commissioned Ipsos MORI to conduct an online poll in 8 countries, including the UK and US, about women’s experiences of abuse or harassment on social media platforms more generally and its impact on women’s freedom of expression online as well as the psychological impact of online abuse and harassment.

Overall, our findings paint a worrying picture that Twitter can be a toxic place for its female users. 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.