140 characters of vitriol: taking it too far on Twitter?

Over 35.6 million tweets discussed the Germany-Brazil FIFA semi-final; many used words like ‘rape’ to describe the host country’s defeat

July 10, 2014 05:08 am | Updated 05:08 am IST - CHENNAI:

The twitterati of Chennai were part of a record-breaking spike in activity on the social network on the night of the Germany–Brazil FIFA World Cup semi-final.

Over 35.6 million tweets discussed the sporting event on the micro-blogging network.

A geo-tagged map of the tweets from across the world on the website cartodb.com showed Chennai was among the most active cities in the country.

While fans gave expression to their feelings, many crossed a line to say how the winning team had “raped” its opponent.

A popular radio jockey tweeted that the Nazis were back. A young film producer also hinted at the glorious return of the “ruthless”. By Wednesday morning, a few who had objected to the language were either trolled or asked to “take things easy”.

Anupama Srinivasan, project director of the gender violence research and information taskforce at the city-based NGO Prajnya, says among those young people conversant with social media it is often considered ‘cool’ to be using such strong words.

“Nobody seems shocked anymore that the words used to degenerate women are being used to symbolise victory. Losing a game is referred to as ‘rape’. Losing by a large margin is referred to as ‘gang rape’. If one starts using these words so casually, we tend to lose sensitivity towards the horror behind the act.”

The usual refrain among those who do use such words while describing anything, especially sporting victories, is that people should criticise considering the context in which they are used.

Leading advocate Gita Ramaseshan felt that the veil of anonymity that the internet provides encourages people to type out messages that they would normally not speak out in person.

“Language has taken a completely different connotation in online networks. The freedom that the internet provides is being used for highly vitriolic usage.”

Gender rights activist Shiela Jayaprakash said: “First, we let go of grammar, then we let go of spellings and slowly our sensitivity towards the words.”

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