2nd August 2013
You may or may not have seen this story developing over the last week or so
Naturally, the vast majority of Twitter users were (are) sickened by the threats of rape, violence and even death suffered by twitter users mentioned in the article, but in seeking to make a protest against Twitter's appalling refusal and/or inability to recognise this abhorrent criminality and to live up to their responsibility to act against it, what has been proposed is the "#trolliday" where high profile or high volume users would leave Twitter to the trolls.
This will happen on Sunday 4th August.
Obviously this is laudably well-motivated, but I think it's very ill-conceived.
In my opinion, the one day neglible dip in traffic from a few celebs and some of their followers does Twitter, the company, no harm and the real attention will be on what those celebs then say about it on Monday. Why not just say it on Sunday? How will the #trolliday itself highlight threats to silence women by participating in that silence? (And out of interest, what's the point in having a hashtag if you won't tweet it?)
I think the gap will just be filled by Justin Bieber, sports, the Sherlock trailer, speculation about the next Doctor Who of course, and any number of other things.
(I'm well aware this makes me a hypocrite when I moan about Justin Bieber, by the way! But I can ignore them, they do no real harm).
Personally, I will be tweeting on Sunday, not silently surrendering the bridge to the trolls - it's #takebacktwitter day to me!
- "There are corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things; Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought." - The (2nd) Doctor, The Moonbase.
Now, I'd already expressed my misgivings about this method of protest, but today this protest took on a (to my mind) very disappointing and distasteful shade to its character.
At midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning, (a mere 7 hours or so after the fact had already been leaked, of course), the BBC announced that the new star of Doctor Who will be revealed in a special live programme.
On Sunday 4th August.
And Doctor Who is one of many shows that has a sizeable fan community on Twitter. They are likely to use Twitter heavily all weekend, speculating, guessing and generally enjoying tweeting about one of their favourite shows.
On Sunday 4th August.
Today, some of the celebs picked up on this, and the comments began to fly.
Some were torn - they like the show and on any other day would tweet hard and fast about the live show but had publicly committed to the #trolliday.
Others wrote ranty pieces slagging off Doctor Who in general, timed to coincide with the buzz about the announcement. Nothing revolutionary, or even that incendiary there.
But next came the derision... and the bullying.
Jokey questions about how "men" were going to choose between watching the Doctor Who in their lonely bedsits and tweeting about it and making a stand with the women. You know, because Doctor Who fans are (1) automatically male and (2) obviously don't care if tweeting on Sunday somehow lets the Trolls carry on getting away with making disgusting abusive tweets.
It's so very disappointing that some of the silent protest crowd have taken to snide, dated, playground bullying of #DoctorWho fans.
And it is bullying, or at the very least a deliberate form of peer pressure, designed to guilt trip Doctor Who fans into joining in the surrender which abandons the bridge to the trolls and participates in the silence that is part of the problem.
N.B. This is not in any way to compare a few snide comments about #DoctorWho fans with the horrific abuse experienced by the women in the article. The two things are in completely different leagues, worlds apart.
It's just that to my mind, trying to draw attention to Twitter's unacceptable la-la-la I can't hear you routine should not be going hand in hand with sneering at others.
Now, because fans of #DoctorWho are excited about the new Doctor being announced on Sunday, they are being co-opted into a specific form of protest when all they want to do is use twitter to be part of a fun, positive, community that celebrates a mutual interest.
Apparently this is not OK, and all these fans, of all ages, genders, colours, shapes and sizes, are all men, and suddenly certain campaigners are looking down their noses at people just enjoying something they like.
It's back to the late 80s and we're all awful nerds and embarrassing geeks again, apparently, fair game for playground-style ridicule and belittlement.
This bullying element is not only disappointing, but there's no small irony there, of course.
Worse is the idea that if you go on twitter on Sunday you must be at least passively accepting the criminal abuse. This is not only utter nonsense, but actually quite offensive and there just should not be this twitterverse version of peer pressure. The message is clear: Stay off twitter on Sunday or on Monday be labelled as part of the problem because you didn't give the trolls the silence they want? Er, no!
I absolutely support any protest against abhorent, criminal abuse, even the silent protest, despite my feeling it is misconceived, but does it have to be part of it that we have a "my form of protest is better than your form of protest" snobbery, and worse, for that to be directed at a typical target of the laziest school playground bully? "Look at the nerds, the sad men in anoraks."
It's not even an accurate representation of modern fandom; it's a lazy stereotype, and a generalisation. It's pigeon holing a group of people in order to belittle and marginalise them. And just because they enjoy a particular TV show, or genre of TV show? Really?
What with the rise of Comic-Con and the increasing prevalence of Cos Play and joyous celebration of fandoms over the last few years, I really thought we'd moved past this sort of thing, but apparently not.
Everyone, please, make your own minds up how you feel you want to deal with this. Don't be pressured by trolls, or bullied off by others.
Personally, I will be using twitter the same as always, the way it should be used, but will include the #takebacktwitter hashtag in all of my Sunday tweets because I believe it is better to stay and make a stand and draw visible attention to the fact that most twitter users do not support, like, or tolerate hateful and criminally abusive use of twitter.
I just hope that the coverage of #trolliday on Monday focuses on the issues it was supposed to, and drops this element of cliquey snobbery about who's the best, nicest, most anti-troll and who's beneath you because they enjoy tweeting their friends about a TV show.
Live & let live - let the #DoctorWho fans #takebacktwitter on Sunday, and please don't make insulting generalisations that lump fans - who are not all men, actually - enjoying a TV programme together with criminal psychopaths.
You're better than that, or at least, you should be.
