Twitter is a toxic place for women

A new study from human rights watchdog Amnesty International reveals that about 7 percent of the tweets prominent women in government and journalism receive were found to be abusive or problematic.

Women of color were 34 percent more likely to be targets than white women. Black women specifically were 84 percent more likely than white women to be mentioned in problematic tweets.

After an analysis that eventually included almost 15 million tweets, Amnesty International released the findings and in its report, described Twitter as a “toxic place for women.”

The report said, “Twitter’s health is measured by how we help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. Conversely, abuse, malicious automation, and manipulation detract from the health of Twitter. We are committed to holding ourselves publicly accountable towards progress in this regard.”

Together with Montreal-based AI startup Element AI, the project called “Troll Patrol” started by looking at tweets aimed at almost 800 female journalists and politicians from the U.S. and the U.K. It didn’t study men. More than 6,500 volunteers analyzed 288,000 posts and labeled the ones that contained language that was abusive or problematic (“hurtful or hostile content” that doesn’t necessarily meet the threshold for abuse).