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Barkha Dutt says Twitter wants to punish her for outing abusers, harassers

On February 19, journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted that the micro-blogging site, Twitter, had locked her account after she outed details of abusers and trolls. In an email complaint to Twitter, Dutt wrote: “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.”

Dutt also wrote: “Twitter was one of the platforms used to circulate my phone number to enable this. Over the years, Twitter has routinely been used to harass, abuse and smear women in India, including me. None of my complaints have ever been acted upon…Instead, today Twitter chooses to stand with perpetrators of sexual abuse and violence.”

The trolling and harassment of journalists had started in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack, where more than 40 CRPF personnel were killed. Several journalists, including Dutt, had offered to shelter Kashmiri students who were facing threats and harassment.

Journalists such as Abhisar Sharma and Ravish also received threats over WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

Later, Dutt tagged Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma in one of her tweets. Verma has responded saying that the police is investigating the matter. Journalist Abhisar Sharma has also filed a police complaint.

Several Twitter users, including journalists, have come forward to condemn the trolling and to stand in solidarity.

Newslaundry reached out to Twitter India for a comment. Newslaundry‘s questions and Twitter India’s spokesperson’s response has been produced in full below.

1. Journalist Barkha Dutt has alleged that she was locked out of her Twitter account for sharing screenshots of abusers’ numbers and messages. What was the reason behind this?
2. It has also been alleged that Twitter is unable to ban/block troll accounts, however, in Ms Dutt’s case, her account was blocked for tweets that outed the lewd messages being sent to her. Your comments?

3. What actions is Twitter taking to put an end to incessant trolling faced by users, particularly journalists?

Twitter India’s response:

“We do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons but as per the Twitter Rules, you may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission. This includes private contact information, such as non-public, personal phone numbers. If we identify a Tweet that violates the Twitter Rules, there are a range of enforcement options we may pursue. These include requiring a user to delete a Tweet, and/or being temporarily locked out of their account before they can Tweet again. More information can be found here and here.

On background:
With regards to the allegation that Barkha’s own phone number was shared on Twitter, it’s important to clarify that like many journalists around the world, Barkha’s phone number is publically available via a number of different channels.”

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