WGS 1000: Social Media: Texas Senator Slandered on Twitter

Monday, April 14, 2014

Texas Senator Slandered on Twitter

Todd Kincannon, a tea party activist, had words to say about Texas Senator Wendy Davis back in January. He took to Twitter to vent about his issues with her. The following screenshot shows a sample of Kincannon's tweets about Davis:

It is natural to see slanderous remarks between opposing party members, and with Davis being a Democrat, nothing less should be expected. However, many would argue that Kincannon took it to an extreme, calling her a whore and a bad mother. All in all, it is clear that the rant should never have made it to Twitter, but it serves as an example of the sexism that exists in the realm of social media.

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Social Networks

An image of various different social media networks, the most relevant ones would be Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Then there is a hyperlink that takes you to an article about the online world for women and the harassment that comes with it. The article is written by Alison Herman, and is a response to the Amanda Hess piece, “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet”. This article gives a new perspective for males to think about while on the internet or social networks. The article’s major points are about the harassment to women of all sorts, how this harassment can’t be avoided, and reasons that there needs to be more security for user’s particularly female users.

Social Media Abuse

This is an image of three major social networks, (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook), with a caution label across them do to the fact that users should be more concerned about what they do on these networks. The image has a hyperlink imbedded in it which when clicked will redirect your browser to a YouTube video. The YouTube video was created by YouTuber Kit Ee Ng and his friends. This video concerns the problems that can escalate over minor event that can lead to severe effects. What happens is a short animated story concerning two girls that leads one of the girl’s mothers getting involved in a diabolical cruel plan that eventually leads to the suicide of one of the girls. The video is trying to show that there needs to be more security on Facebook for creation of accounts, and the abuse users can experience on the site Facebook.

Twitter Policy

This is an image of the icon for the social network application called Twitter. Twitter is a very easy to use application but it is also very easy to abuse it and other users. On almost every single social network there is abuse from user to user about who knows what. Not only is the abuse happening almost every day but it has little to no consequences for the abusers. In the image is a hyperlink to the Abusive behavior policy for twitter. Like most social networking sites it says in the terms of service that there should be no abuse that occurs on these sites and if violated users will be punished. These words have little to no weight on the conscience of the abusers. These consequences need to be more severe and implemented more often in order to make users feel safe.

Instagram Policy

This is an image of the icon for the social media application called Instagram. While on Instagram many users, mainly female, can take enormous amounts of sexual and emotional abuse from other users. There is a hyperlink imbedded in the image which will redirect your browser to the privacy terms of use for Instagram. According to #6 on the list there should not be any sorts of abuse occurring on Instagram, but abuse still occurs every day. This shows that there needs to be an upgrade in the security and consequences for all users. The abuse that occurs can cause users to not want to even use the application anymore because they feel threatened. No person should feel threatened while using this application or any form of social network. Improvements needed.