Award-winning Indian journalist Barkha Dutt on Tuesday slammed micro-blogging website Twitter for locking her out of her social media account following her decision to publicly name men who had targeted her with images of their genitals and abusive phone calls including one where she was given a death threat.
“I would like to place on record my absolute horror and disgust at Twitter’s encouragement of sexual abuse and gender inequality. I have been locked out of Twitter because I outed the names and numbers along with evidence of men who stalked me, threatened me with rape and sent me pictures of their genitals,” she wrote in a mail to Twitter, a screenshot of which she shared on the social media platform itself.
I had close to 1000 abusive messages and calls in a Cordinated and violent mob attack. These included a message to shoot me, a nude photo, many sexually abusive messages. I outed the men who did this. Twitter locked me till many of the details were taken down. I wroe this to them pic.twitter.com/XRyx9xbjcV
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 19, 2019
Dutt had become the target of abuse after retweeted former BJP MP Tarun Vijay’s post saying “my doors are open to all patriotic Indians” after a few schools and colleges reportedly announced that they wouldn’t enrol Kashmiri students in light of the Pulwama terror attack.
I met #IndianKashmiriMuslim girls #Dehradun.Told they r like our daughters.I live closeby. Pl feel free to contact me anytime.I gave my address and phone no. My doors are open to all patriotic Indians. Always.They admitted we feel concerned for them because we are ONE. @BDUTT pic.twitter.com/RIA3EPkIZ6
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) February 17, 2019
After the multiple abusive calls and messages which Dutt claimed to be around 1000, she shared the names and numbers of those who were hiding behind keyboards and screens only to have Twitter take action against her instead.
Apparently @Twitter wants to punish me for sharing the numbers of the men who are giving me death threats, sending me dick pictures and harassing me. Talk about being tone deaf on gender equality. Well done @jack @amritat
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 18, 2019
“I got a mail from them saying you had violated Twitter rules,” she told while shedding light on the fact that no such measures are taken against abusers.
I got a mail from them saying u had violated twitter rules and they would have to remove the tweets and take me off if I continued. Where is this alacrity when women are abused with rape and death threats. Sickening response
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 18, 2019
This is not the first time the workings of Twitter has been laid out in the open. Many women, prominent and non-prominent, have complained about lax rules against abuse on the social media site.
According to an Amnesty International report published in December 2018, 1.1 million abusive or problematic tweets were sent to women in 2018, an average of one every 30 seconds. Interestingly, most of these women included women journalists and politicians, positions of power in which many men do not want to see and accept women.
