Twitter is collaborating with Women, Action & the Media, more commonly referred to as WAM! to help reduce the number of harassing tweets directed at women. The issues will be resolved within 24 hrs if there is enough evidence of abuse.
To do this, WAM! has kicked off a harassment reporting tool, which will allow women who are being harassed on the micro-blogging site because of their gender to report the abuse. WAM! then, will review the report and pass ones that meet the criteria on to Twitter.
Starting today, WAM! is running a pilot project to support all Twitter users experiencing harassment and abuse on the platform due to their gender. Users are invited to use this simple form to report it to WAM.
WAM will investigate the validated reports to Twitter and track Twitter’s responses to different kinds of gendered harassment. At the end of the pilot test period, WAM! will analyze the data collected and use it to work with Twitter to better understand how gendered harassment functions on their platform, and to improve their responses to it.
25 percent of young women online have been sexually harassed online
According to a Pew research report in their official web portal says that women are often targeted to greater degrees with “most severe forms” of abuse online. This pilot aims to “ensure that all users are equally free to speak without being targeted by harassment, abuse, and threats,” says WAM!’s executive director Jaclyn Friedman.
A recent Pew research study found that fully 25 percent of young women online have been sexually harassed online and 26 percent have experienced stalking
Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) WAM! is an independent North American nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media.WAM! builds community and activism to advance women’s media participation, ownership and representation.