Taking Out The Twitter Trash

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Taking Out The Twitter Trash

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One of the many benefits of having written Broken Pieces is the support I’ve received from other CSA (Child Sex Abuse) survivors. So much so that I created a private, secret Facebook group (up to 50 mostly female members now). It’s our private place for group support — not therapy — and I couldn’t be more pleased to have connected with these amazing souls.

Another idea I had, after guesting on Bruce Sallan’s #DadChat last year, was to start #SexAbuseChat (read more here). I didn’t start the chat, however, until I had a certified therapist on board, as my background is marketing, not psychology. I’m so pleased to have connected with the amazing Bobbi Parish — survivor, author, and certified therapist. Definitely read about her — she’s amazing.

We’ve successfully had a wonderful weekly chat on Twitter (every Tuesday 6pm PST/9pm EST) for wow, maybe nine months now? It is a public chat, so we let attendees know that it’s fine to participate, lurk, send private DMs, whatever is comfortable for them. We also remind everyone that the chat is NOT meant as a replacement for therapy or meds (if needed), more a way to find support within the survivor community. (Want to join? Use the hashtag from 9-10pm EST any Tuesday to search, join, chat.)

Okay. Let’s deconstruct.

DISCUSSION

This week we had a man, who recently followed me, chime in with several disparaging comments regarding women and rape (which I won’t repeat here except to say that it’s not how women dress or what they’ve had to drink — women don’t rape themselves). Meanwhile, he DMs me to say that he doesn’t really believe what he’s spouting — he’s simply link-baiting, if you will, in hopes of getting retweets and more followers. I also received DMs from several chat participants who were triggered by his outburst.

What would you do? Here’s what I did (not saying it’s right or wrong, it just is).

While my usual policy is to ignore trolls, I didn’t feel I could do that here. Not because he stepped on my turf, but because he deliberately hurt chat participants with his careless comments.

I DM’d him back that regardless of his personal beliefs one way or the other, crashing my chat to dump on women was inappropriate. Twitter is a free country, if you will. Say what you want about whomever you want — but there ARE rules (no, I didn’t make them up) and bogarting a chat for your own harassing purposes is not only rude but also against Twitter’s Rules.

I was also fucking pissed. How dare he use my chat (, which I’ve worked for months and months to be a safe (albeit, public) place for any survivor of sexual violence), for his own flimsy, silly purposes (more followers, retweets). The lack of respect was appalling, but the fact that it triggered survivors (don’t we get enough ‘victim-blaming’ as it is already?) brought out mama bear.

APOLOGY

I demanded a public apology (‘sorry if ladies were offended’ was the weak extent) as Bobbi and I hustled to check on everyone who messaged us to make sure they were okay. I realize I cannot control what anyone will say or how others will react to it — I’m not naive. However, most people are extremely respectful of our chat and wouldn’t dream of creating pseudo-intellectual, misleading tweets for the sole, selfish purposes of increasing their own following.

I do wonder what his mother or sisters would think of his behavior (even if he doesn’t REALLY mean it), because regardless of whether or not those are his beliefs, he’s adding to the victim shaming/blaming indicative of much of social media’s patriarchal attitude toward rape, only furthering the rape culture they deny exists.

RESPECT

Really, like anything online, it comes down to a matter of respect. I get that people get off on that rush of retweets and replies (whether positive or negative) when saying something controversial on social media, particularly on Twitter. Careers have been made with a simple tweet. They’ve also been broken. ‘Nobody is watching until everyone is watching’ as the Twitter saying goes.

If you’re unsure about a conversation or chat, do this: Lurk. Watch. Listen. Learn. Because guess what? It’s not all about you, and when you interrupt someone’s chat with rude, insensitive comments, you make something good into something that I now have to write about on my blog. My chat will continue with my amazing family of survivors, regardless. In fact, we’re stronger after a situation like this because not only did we survive the initial abuse, we can deal with these types of comments and file them away under ‘Trash.’

Where it belongs.

I’d love your thoughts, comments, and experiences! Be sure to sign up for my newsletter, to hear about what’s coming up with my latest book projects and various blog posts. Need social media, branding, or marketing services? Visit my BadRedheadMedia.com site for details.

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