“I felt violated.” Sliding into a woman's DMs is only fun when you DON’T. They tell us why…
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00:00You and your f**king dad should be beaten up in the market.
00:03Who the f**k told you you're funny?
00:07Can we do sex chat, please?
00:11I felt violated.
00:15F**king a**hole came to f**k again.
00:18Definitely the more hate you receive,
00:21the more you retract.
00:24And then this person,
00:26suddenly out of the blue,
00:27sends me his d**k pic.
00:30So, these are the kind of DMs that flood our inboxes.
00:47I thought that this is one person who's just
00:51having a really bad day or...
00:53It would be like, oh s**t, have I said something wrong
00:56that has offended someone?
00:58I mean, it was two things.
01:00I was questioning myself that what did I do
01:02that brought about such a reaction in this person?
01:05Would someone tell that to me if they had met me face-to-face
01:09and would have conveyed the same kind of message
01:12in the same language?
01:13And two, what are they going through
01:15that they're having to resort to this kind of discourse?
01:18I felt violated, personally.
01:21And also, I felt some feeling of
01:25what if only they could know me as a person?
01:28Or is it really the privacy of social media
01:32which unleashes the demon in people
01:34and makes them do and say things that they do?
01:41Definitely became three-fold
01:46since I became a mildly popular public figure.
01:52I think any woman who is online on social media
01:55and is expressing her opinions is targeted
01:57irrespective of whether she's a public figure
01:59or a common person.
02:01And I always say this, I'm like, I'm a public figure,
02:03I'm not a public toilet, so don't expect me to tolerate.
02:05More people who don't like people like me
02:09or outspoken women like me
02:11are finding reason to come and disagree in...
02:17Not so civilly disagree, but yeah, disagree with me in my DMs.
02:21We still live in a patriarchal society
02:23and the opinions are still tinted that ways
02:26where they wouldn't really want women to open up on social media
02:31with the views and opinions that they really care for.
02:43Many times they also tell me,
02:45why have you given your phone number?
02:47I think their primary advice would be, don't talk about this.
02:50Why haven't you really blocked it?
02:52Don't say this, don't do this.
02:54Why do you even get into conversations with anonymous persons?
02:57Like, every advice would probably be about self-censoring.
03:03And I don't want that.
03:04I mean, we get enough of that from the world anyways.
03:07Online platforms will 8 out of 10 times fail you
03:22when you try to report abuse
03:23because, I mean, if they were successful,
03:26there would be no abuse, honestly.
03:28Nothing seems to violate their community guidelines.
03:31A couple of them may get addressed with, you know,
03:33just suspension of the account of the person for a few days at the most.
03:38I don't really know what are, like, actual consequences
03:42that people might face if they are being hateful to you in your DMs.
03:46So a lot of times, you do feel a little bit, like, defeated
03:50or you feel like this was pointless.
03:53The easiest thing to do is just to block and forget.
03:56I don't want to say that you have to be okay with it,
03:58but, like, you have to assess how harmful or immediately dangerous it is to you.
04:05Like, if it is a rape threat, I would like for it to be investigated immediately.
04:11But I would really advise everyone, take it up legally, you know.
04:14Hold them accountable for this.
04:16Because the internet is not their toilet.
04:19And your account, especially, is not their toilet.
04:29I tend to overthink now.
04:31Definitely, the more hate you receive, the more you retract.
04:38For a long time, I've been hesitant about expressing myself.
04:41A lot of these DMs which flood our inboxes
04:45specifically target me being a Muslim, transgender, opinionated person
04:52who is also against the current regime of government.
04:57So, yes, it does really bother you when you get a lot of Islamophobic or transphobic messages.
05:04Even now, I have these filters and a lot of these filters are not, like, genuine great filters
05:10but they're just filters born out of fear of being trolled.
05:12Definitely, you try to protect yourself a lot more by not talking as much
05:20and by not putting out as much content.
05:23People target you based upon your name and your identity rather than your views.
05:28And there is no healthy discussion but simply trolling or abusing which happens.
05:33And that is the environment and the climate that they're working so hard to create
05:37that people are scared of saying what they want.
05:39How victim-blaming goes, you tend to think that it is something you are doing wrong
05:45and you are saying wrong, that is inviting or welcoming all kinds of hate.
05:52Whereas, that's not the case.