Senior journalist Barkha Dutt slammed Twitter for locking her out of her social media account on Monday. After a barrage of explicit images and abusive phone calls, she had publicised the contact details of the individuals involved in the act. “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," she wrote in a mail to the head honchos of Twitter.
Early on Monday morning, Dutt tweeted that she was closing her direct message facility to general access, claiming, “It has been unfortunately hijacked by the abusive mob and they have shown themselves up to be the scum that they are.”
I got a mail from them saying u had violated twitter rules and they would have to remove the tweets and take me off if I continued. Where is this alacrity when women are abused with rape and death threats. Sickening response
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 18, 2019
Dutt also tweeted that she was faced with a deluge of abusive WhatsApp messages, in what she called an “organised hate campaign”. She said one sender claimed her phone number was being circulated on WhatsApp groups.
"Twitter was one of the platforms used to circulate my phone number to enable this," she wrote in the mail. "Over the years Twitter has routinely been used to harass, abuse and smear women in India, including me. None of my complaints have been acted upon. Instead our complaints are trapped in legalese and bureaucratic mazes."
"Instead, today Twitter chooses to stand with perpetrators of sexual abuse and violence," she wrote. "If only you had shown one fourth the decency in cleaning your own backyard your intervention today may have had some authenticity. For the moment you have revealed yourself to be vile enablers of sexual abuse and violence. Shame on you. And be assured I will contest this legally."
