Twitter joins forces with WAM to curb sexual harassment

Twitter has teamed up with Women, Action & the Media (WAM) to help users report abuse and harassment via a new online tool. WAM has also created an  online form for the cause. The tool has been designed to track abuse and harassment reports from men as well as women. It could be anything from impersonation and posting false information to hate speech and revenge porn. Users can also report on behalf of someone else, if they have fears for personal safety. But you will have to submit the Twitter handle/handles of the person/people harassing you. In an official statement, WAM writes, “We’re using this pilot project to learn about what kind of gendered harassment is happening on Twitter, how that harassment intersects with other kinds of harassment (racist, transphobic, etc.), and which kinds of cases Twitter is prepared (and less prepared) to respond to. We’ll then work with Twitter to improve their responses to the harassment of women on their platform.” All the personal details you share while submitting the complaint form will be shared only with Twitter, it further states. However, WAM doesn’t take any decisions on how the issue will be resolved. Basically, it only escalates your problem (read form) to Twitter, which will take the final call. This new online tool comes just a couple of months after the ‘Gamergate’ controversy. In August, a game developer’s ex-boyfriend accused her of cheating with a video game journalist that eventually targeted her as well as her supporters who were mostly women. The hashtag #gamergate several reports of online harassment began surfacing.