#Twittersilence leads to fall in posts after 6am yesterday, as users look to stop trolls
Yesterday, people took part in a Twitter silence to try to show what it would be like if trolls overran the social media site.Caitlin Moran led the #twittersilence, in the week following people such as Mary Beard and Caroline Criado-Perez receiving threats.
haha so I really am going now. please don't hassle anyone who doesn't want to join in. See you 12am tomorrow. THANK YOU #twittersilence xxx
— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) August 3, 2013Discussing why she was starting the campaign, ahead of yesterday, Moran said: "But August the 4th is International Friendship Day, and, personally, I wanted to do something symbolic on that day, in the spirit of international friendship. In the last few weeks, I've seen women on Twitter being run to exhaustion by the volume of anonymous rape and violence tweets they've received - so many that even just blocking them is a full time job. I've seen my friends' Twitter bomb-threats ON THE NEWS. I've seen the messages escalate even AFTER someone's been arrested. AFTER. "And, obviously, it's not just women. In the wake of this, we're now talking about the problem of online abuse towards people for their religion, race, sexuality and physicality. Essentially the problems of the most nightmare playground ever have been given a jet-pack and a megaphone through the power of social networking."According to Radian6, #twittersilence generated over 33,980 mentions on Twitter since Friday in the UK alone.Conversation peaked at 6am on Sunday, with 6am-6pm generating 8,000 less posts than the period between 5am and 6am.However, not everyone took part in the silence.Mary Beard also returned to Twitter to report that she was still receiving threats.Unbelievable. I am ungrateful because I don't want to shut up for a day. Because I don't want trolls to have an impact on my behaviour.
— CarolineCriado-Perez (@CCriadoPerez) August 4, 2013Some of those taking part in the Twitter silence rapped those who continued to use the social media site, as some instead decided to use the day for ‘shouting back’ to raise awareness.Planned to be off twitter, but I've had more threats this morning (rape and worse). It IS still going on. Tried to report to Twitter, failed
— mary beard (@wmarybeard) August 4, 2013I enjoyed doing #twittersilence with those that did it. I enjoyed all the people #shoutingback. I enjoyed people trying to do things.
— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) August 4, 2013I joined #twittersilence for those getting abuse but appreciate those who #shoutingback - as long as we all want the same end result x
— Julia Course Crofts (@JuliaCrofts) August 5, 2013