Is Twitter worth it?

This morning reading Leigh Sales’s twitter experience brought back so many memories from a few months ago. My friends always told me I use twitter a lot, compared to them, yes I was a more active user of twitter, however I never considered that I was addicted to it. I had two accounts for almost a decade now, one with my academic affiliations and other for my personal opinions. It was during the second lockdown of Melbourne when I felt stuck. It was twitter that provided a magical portal to dive into the virtual world and get distracted from the realities of life. Till March 2021, I was so grateful for this platform and became heavily dependent on it for my daily happiness. Only after being trolled and attacked viciously and non-stop for months by a gang of trolls who seemed to have nothing better to do with their time, I had to pause momentarily to reflect on its value all over again.

Some of my colleagues, close friends and mentors all were of the opinion that I should let go of my personal opinion account. So that’s it, that’s the solution, tell a woman to back off and let the trolls win in silencing her. I decided to continue, women have to claim their space on twitter just like the real world. Someone has a problem with my opinions, that’s their problem, they are more than welcome to unfollow me or block me. I also started to appreciate that I had the choice to move away from all this, the women in public office or journalism have to rely on these platforms as part of their jobs.

When an “alt-right” white supremacist tell you via website Breitbart, “the solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: women should log off [the Internet]” (Yiannopoulos 2016)” 

To every woman on twitter, NEVER LOG OFF!

Since last year I started making notes about my personal experiences on twitter when I started following the #auspol for the first time. I am a qualitative researcher and my approach to twitter was cyber ethnography. Over the period of time I learnt that twitter does operate on the game behind the numbers rather than the actual context or the truth behind the post. Once you know the rules of the game, it's very easy to manipulate them. Number of followers, likes, retweets, they define what will be on the trends, and not many will have the time to verify the facts. Only by connecting to the online communities over a period of time can one clearly see the virtual eco-systems of arbitrary groups of like-minded accounts, gathered around a few influencers (or hashtags) of their choice, sometimes living within their own eco-chambers.

Numbers are not everything but they do provide an overview of what is happening in this little cyber colony of accounts, whether genuine, verified, sock puppets, bots and/or trolls. Like it or hate it, it is a fascinating world within cyberspace. I am extremely grateful to Tim Graham from QUT for providing the historical data set on journalism during covid-19. To map it to my personal ethnographic data collected during that time period, and writing those experiences as academic articles is taking longer than I anticipated. You have to do research, the actual ‘research’ that requires academic rigor, evidence and justification for peer review. A work in progress at the moment …

After reading Leigh Sales’ experience in today’s article, I decided to put together a short snippet or a summary of the numbers from only the last seven days (8-14 September 2021 retrieved through TalkWalker).

This graph only represents the mentions of twitter handles of selected five male journalists and five female journalists. This does not include yet the indirect references or use of name instead of twitter account handle. Leigh Sales at the moment is the recipient of the top negative sentiments on twitter. 

Looking at the demographics of those tweeting about these twitter accounts, for female journalists, it is dominantly men from 18-45 who are providing their opinions.  

When it comes to the associated hashtags with the account handles of male journalists the dominant hashtags are somewhat neutral.

However, when it comes to female journalists and their twitter account handles, the associated hashtags are very different in nature. In past there had been very specific hashtags related to their names such #WhatsTheIssueRachel or #LeighForSale or #LNPeta (even though Peta Credlin is not on twitter).

A glimpse of the data retrieved from May-June 2021 during the fourth lockdown of Melbourne shows that the female journalists do not create as much tweet volume as male journalists.

Now the question regarding twitter being heavily skewed towards left and far left leaning accounts, yes it is. DaveMilbo (popular with left wing accounts for his attacks on Murdoch Press) has the highest tweet volume and gets the highest positive response. After January 2021 when twitter cracked down on far right accounts and suspended those spreading unverified conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers, anti-mask and similar, a virtual vacuum was created and those who put themselves as the centrists are now becoming the RW for the Far Left.

The women of RW ideology to some extent gets the worst treatment on twitter. Those who are at awe at the horrible treatment thrown at Julia Gillard (SBS #StrongFemaleLead), how many of them will also acknowledge that regardless of their disagreement on political ideologies, Gladys is also a strong female leader? Peta Credlin, Sophie Elsworth or Rachel Baxendale are also strong female journalists standing up for their views, and coping with the backlash and abuse online every day for it. And yet many think that "they deserve it", the classic online version of "she was asking for it".

Calling out misogyny on twitter is somewhat contextual and is defined based on who the woman is. This phenomena comes from all sides of politics. It was not just Julia, it is literally every woman who has an opinion and dares to voice it openly in any public space.

How many will stand up for the misogyny we see on twitter for the women we disagree with? Some of the selected exhibits below are coming from progressive 'left wing' accounts, who are puzzled on why the 'right wing' men and women never stood up for Julia Gillard. Look at the twitter world from their view, without any bias, the answers are not difficult to find.

Back to the question, is twitter worth it? Yes. I met some exceptional humans on twitter, they are really lovely, caring and kind people, some I agree with and some I disagree with and yet we all care about each other. I would not have had the opportunity to have met them if it was not for twitter. Their love and care outweighs all the negativity of twitter.

Also, if someone tells me to shut up, it is my duty as an ethnic woman to raise the volume of my voice further up. Diversity of opinions in cyberspace are way more important than many realise. Never let anyone silence you or make you leave your space.