Unpacking Misogynoir #4: Protect Ya Neck
previously published in 2022 via mediumThroughout this series of blog posts, I have explicitly talked about how misogynoir lives out loud and in color on websites like Twitter. It is not unique to Twitter but that is where I see it most often in my own use of social media. One thing I have observed is that Black women have to protect themselves online more often than not because the safety and privacy guidelines on Twitter miss the mark. You can read more about the safety and privacy rules here.
Scholars like Mikki Kendall and Feminista Jones used hashtags to hold folk accountable online and offline. Hashtags like #YouOkSis, #MeToo, #YourSlipIsShowing and #Solidarityisforwhitewomen challenged these racist and sexist ways of being, knowing, and thinking. These hashtags created and mobilized by Black women online were forms of digital alchemy. Moya Bailey defines digital alchemy as “a way that women of color, black women, and black non-binary femmes, agender, and gender-variant folk transform everyday digital media into valuable social justice media that recode the failed scripts that negatively impact their lives”. You can read more about this in her book Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance.
The goal of this final blog post is to give you all some ways to protect yourself and others online from misogynoiristic and racist trolls. These examples are those that I and others in my community have used but I am sure there are more. I hope these are helpful and that you will share them widely with others. We have to protect ourselves and find our own joy online because Twitter doesn’t give a damn about Black women. I said what I said.
8 Ways to Protect Yourself from Misogynoir Online:
Blocking is something that I stand behind. Blocking people swiftly will allow you to keep them from seeing your content. To block someone on Twitter you must go to their page →click the dots beside the follow button → click block.
Muting is great because you can mute words, phrases, accounts, and tweets that you do not want to see. In order to mute you would go to those same three dots and click mute user. To mute words you would go to your settings →privacy and safety — ->mute and block. This is also where you can choose how long you want to mute a word or phrase and a complete list of all the accounts you’ve blocked/muted and words you have muted.
Soft-Blocking is something that is known but unknown because it isn’t talked about as much. Let’s say someone follows you and you don’t want to block them but you also don’t want them to follow you. What you can do to get them outta there is block them and then unblock them. That will have them automatically unfollow your page without them knowing. They would only know if they go to your page and see that they are no longer following you but it’s unlikely that they will suspect that you soft-blocked them.
Private Page making your page private is a sure way to make sure you can avoid all trolls. The only thing is it limits your engagements with accounts that don’t follow you. I like to go private when I have a viral tweet or when I am getting an influx of assholes in my mentions. I stay private for a while (maybe a week) until it dies down, then I unlock my page again.
Padding Mentions I can’t remember the exact article but back in 2016 I came across an article that talked about padding the mentions of women journalists when they were attacked by trolls on Twitter. The concept is to tweet them an influx of positive things so it outweighs the negative tweets. I thought this was a genius idea and I always suggest it when I see someone online being attacked by trolls.
Control Replies Twitter now has a feature where you can control who can reply to your tweets. When you go to tweet at the bottom left corner there will be a drop-down menu that says, everyone. From there you can choose who can reply, mention, etc. The only thing you can’t control is who can quote tweet your tweet. I hope they add that as a feature in the future because trolls know how to quote tweet, obviously.
Circles Instagram started a close friends option on their platform where you can choose who can see certain posts on your stories. Twitter created something similar called Circles. Circles allow you to choose up to 150 followers who can see your “secret” tweets. This is great because you can use it to share your opinion without unknown eyes on it. This can also be dangerous for the same reason.
Communities Twitter came out with Communities before Circles. Communities are basically ways for you to connect with others who share the same interests as you on Twitter in a somewhat private forum. Only people added to it can tweet folks in it and any tweet you post in the community will only show in that community, not on your personal feed. You can use this as a way to create a safe space for Black women to talk about different topics without the fear of a troll attacking them.
These options are great for when you have reported a page and you are either waiting on Twitter to deactivate them or unfortunately did not have your report taken seriously enough for their page to be deactivated. Reporting trolls should be an easy and seamless process where you feel like your safety is a priority and that the attacks will be seen as not only urgent but also unacceptable, that is not the case. So, we have to continue to find creative ways to exist online despite the attacks and blatant lack of concern from social media platforms. My main goal with this series was to not only unpack misogynoir but leave you all with some actions you can take to protect yourself and other Black women and non-binary femmes online. We gotta protect our necks because we are the only ones who truly care about our well-being.