Social media can be a brutal place, especially if you're a woman of colour

Shutting down my social media was what I needed to do to protect my own mental health and the safety of my family, I was also removing my voice from public discourse.

Black female journalists and politicians receive an abusive tweet every 30 seconds, according to new data from Amnesty International and Element AI. Source: Getty Images

OPINION

Social media can be a brutal place. Especially if you are doing anything that raises your public profile. But add to that being a woman of colour working in a profession where you get the opportunity to have your opinions heard - such as that of a journalist or a politician - then you can almost guarantee you will be at the receiving end of a barrage of abuse.

Women of colour often complain about this, and everyone seems to shrug and tells you to ignore it before they move on to tweeting about cats. Last year, research found that if you are a woman of colour, especially a black female politician or journalist, then you are “84 per cent more likely to be mentioned in abusive or ‘problematic’ tweets than white women in the same profession”. The study carried out in collaboration with Amnesty International and Canadian firm Element AI used cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to scan through hundreds of thousands of tweets and found that female black journalists and politicians were receiving one abusive tweet every 30 seconds.

I’m pretty sure no one will be shocked at these findings, especially those at the receiving end of the hate. But nearly one year on, has anything changed? I have myself been subject to a number of Twitter pile-ons and while people may think that one’s online life and real life are completely separate this is certainly not the case, especially when you are receiving messages attacking you, your work and even in some cases your family. The online world very much blurs into your real world. I suffered from insomnia and anxiety when I was subject to such attacks. I also on occasion feared for the safety of my children and family when I was threatened by some trolls saying they would find out where I lived and visit me. When these attacks got particularly vicious and personal, I had no choice but to shut down my social media. This would involve protecting my tweets and clamping down on the security settings of my other social media profiles.

While I was doing what I needed to do to protect my own mental health and the safety of my family, I was also removing my voice from public discourse

But here’s the thing - shutting down your social media profiles also silences you. So while I was doing what I needed to do to protect my own mental health and the safety of my family, I was also removing my voice from public discourse. Which ultimately meant, the trolls had won.

Women in particular wear many hats - we are often in the position of being carers, whether to children, or other dependents. We juggle many personal commitments along with work and family life. The last thing we need on top of everything else is to deal with some anonymous stranger somewhere in the world sending us hateful messages because we expressed an opinion that was different to theirs. It is why many women, especially those with big profiles have signed off social media, especially Twitter.

Twitter is known to have a huge harassment problem. The problem is so bad, Amnesty International released a report on it using the hashtag #toxictwitter. It’s also something the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has recognised as a problem.

The trolls are still there, trust me, and they are harassing women in colour in particular almost as a sport

But for all the statements made by Twitter to make it a safer platform for both women and people of colour, the fact of the matter is nothing is working. The trolls are still there, trust me, and they are harassing women in colour in particular almost as a sport.

So what’s the answer? The easiest one is to leave the platform of course. But as someone working as a journalist I often rely on Twitter for work. I have however, seriously cut down on the time I spend on the platform and who I interact with while I’m on it. It’s a shame that I have had to take safety procedures when I’m on the platform but for many women there is no other choice - one’s mental health and safety comes before everything else.

For now I’ll remain on Twitter because it’s a good place to read breaking news and receive on the ground reporting of live events. I’ve also met some really lovely people on there. But for it to be a safe, more equitable place for women of colour, then a lot more work needs to be done before we can be truly free to tweet how we feel.

Saman Shad is a media commentator and freelance writer. You can follow Saman on Twitter at @muminprogress.