Internet is a great medium when it comes to expressing our feelings or finding solutions to problems but there are some people who want to increase the problems of the world by spreading hatred through social media. Twitter is a very effective medium to put your thoughts across the whole world and hate-mongers have been using this platform not just to spread hate but also to promote terrorist activities. Twitter has been trying a lot to handle the situation but still it seems as if a lot needs to be done.
Shahak Shapira, a German-Israeli comedian, is also disturbed with the amount of hatred that he found online and reported 300 incidents of hate and abuse to Twitter in a period of almost six months. However, he didn’t get the response as expected and only 9 times Twitter got back to him, telling that those incidents were not violating the social media norms.
He said in a YouTube video,
“The statements I reported weren’t just plain insults or jokes, but absolutely serious threats of violence, homophobia, xenophobia, or Holocaust denial.”
He also did the same thing on Facebook, reported 150 comments and nearly 80% comments were removed in few days.
He was upset with the response of Twitter and decided to do something on his own. He made stencils of 30 hate tweets and visited Hamburg.
In Hamburg, in front of the office of Twitter, he stencil the tweets on the road with the chalk paint to let Twitter know that it has a big responsibility to fulfill, as he says,
“If Twitter forces me to see those things, then they’ll have to see them too.”
Here’s a video in this connection:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMTBINlLFU[/yt]
Click here to watch this video directly on YouTube
He shared the video with caption, “I reported about 300 hate tweets. Twitter didn’t delete ’em, so I sprayed them in front of their office #HEYTWITTER”
I reported about 300 hate tweets. Twitter didn't delete 'em, so I sprayed them in front of their office #HEYTWITTER https://t.co/wPqiwaxd7J
— Shahak Shapira (@ShahakShapira) August 7, 2017
Other users also praised him and tweeted:
https://twitter.com/disastrid/status/895176695745056768
https://twitter.com/dazzywoo/status/895227749199118337
https://twitter.com/bipolarlioness/status/895162638476488705
#HeyTwitter your downfall will be your failure to remove hateful reported content from your platform @twitter https://t.co/H7zr01JczT
— Dr. Jennifer Jackson PhD RN (@JJackson_RN) August 9, 2017
Well, a great idea indeed! It’s commendable on the part of Shahak that he is taking his social responsibility so seriously and we all need to learn from him!
