Twitter empowers women

Women harassment is something that the world has not succeeded in countering despite all efforts.  Many nonprofit organizations have worked towards this cause but not much has been done so far. TWTR now wants to work on this issue, hence for this reason they have collaborated with WAM (Women, Action, and the Media) in order to play their share in making this world a safer place for women.

In order to counter this issue an online survey was established that asked women aged 18 to 25 to participate. According to consensus, many reported of harassment online. In order to counter it WAM has developed a form which harassment victims need to fill that would later be submitted to TWTR. “There are a lot of different ways that women are getting harassed and Twitter’s current reporting system isn’t catching all of them,” stated Jaclyn Friedman, who is the executive director of WAM.

The purpose of this would be to report more cases of harassment which are usually left unattended. This way, those women who cannot stand against these issues can at least record their protest against it.  These reports will reach TWTR in maximum 24 hours of the time they have been reported. Thus the actions would be immediate and would not account for delay. The purpose as explained by Friedman would be “You might report one tweet, but that may not rise to the level of harassment,” said Freidman. “But if you paint a picture of other harassment, you get a bigger story.”

Another purpose of the research would be to track the behavior of those people who are involved in harassment related activities.  This will allow the company to analyze the way these harassers behave and would eventually let them to deduce ways to counter them. This will assist them in analyzing if they follow any pattern or no.

“This must be more than just a plan to appease those of us speaking up about harassment in the short term,” claimed Emily Lindin  who is working on  The UnSlut Project, she has faced name-calling online and assaults through email or cellular phones“Threats on social media are real threats, and if those making them knew there would be consequences, they might make different decisions. As it is, reporting Twitter harassment is fruitless and blocking a user just puts a bigger target on your back.”

Thus it is now the requirement of social media giants to step up and counter harassment in order to ensure women interest. TWTR’s initiate is commendable but we need more such initiates.