Twitter suspended 21 accounts that were actively engaged in an abusive campaign against Muslim women. Responding to Citizens for Justice and Peace’s (CJP) complaint against these accounts that often used foul language, posted obscene and pornographic content, and encouraged sexual violence against Muslim women, Twitter suspended the accounts for “violating Twitter’s Terms of Service”.
CJP in its complaint dated May 26, had also brought to Twitter’s attention certain posts made through these accounts that demeaned Muslim women as “sex objects for Hindu men”. The content displayed pornographic videos of women in hijab with inflammatory captions presenting Muslim women as objects meant to be sexually exploited, and also photoshopped pictures of Hindu men and pregnant women in saffron hijab.
Out of these, Twitter has removed 11 posts for violating Twitter norms.
Three unchecked accounts were “actioned for violating Twitter’s Media Policy”. Media depicting sexual violence and/or assault is not permitted as per Twitter’s rules. “We prohibit violent sexual conduct to prevent the normalization of sexual assault and non-consensual violence associated with sexual acts,” their policy reads.
CJP’s complaint focused on the “repercussions of such online activity that saw its history in the incidents of communal violence and genocidal pogroms that have damaged India’s social fabric for decades.”
“In both the 2002 Gujarat genocidal carnage, and the Muzaffarnagar pogrom of 2013, rape and gendered violence was used as a weapon of violence against Muslim women,” CJP stated., citing an instance of mass distribution of hundreds of pamphlets with all sorts of messages spreading hatred against Muslims right before the anti-Muslim carnage in Gujarat.
The complaint was based on a report in the online portal Article 14 that mentioned a catena of such abusive social media accounts with proper imagery, revealing a common pattern of Islamophobic content. It also documented harrowing experiences of women who have been subject to such online hate, and researchers who have interviewed men and women who make such accounts on social media.
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Rushda Fathima Khan is the Staff Reporter for The Cognate.
