analysis

Twitter harassment by the numbers

July 6, 2015

Reporting, Reviewing, and Responding to Harassment on Twitter: A new report by the nonprofit Women, Action and Media (WAM!), which was granted authorization by Twitter to receive and assess reports of harassment on the platform, escalating the most serious ones to Twitter.

21
Days that WAM! reviewed reports of harassment on Twitter

27
Percent of harassment reports focused on
hate speech

12
Percent of harassment reports focused on threats of violence

12
Percent of the alleged harassing accounts could be linked to GamerGate

29
Percent of reports said harassment had been ongoing for at least three weeks

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67
Percent of submitters claimed they had notified Twitter at least once previously

43
Percent of reports were escalated to Twitter’s abuse reporting system

55
Percent of escalated reports that Twitter took action on by deleting, suspending, or warning the harassing account

79
Percent of Twitter’s leadership that is male
as of 2014

72
Percent of Twitter’s leadership that is white
as of 2014. WAM! recommends that Twitter improves its leadership diversity

The Editors are the staffers of the Columbia Journalism Review.