Hi there, First of all : sorry if any mistakes in English languages.. I need some advice on how I can report someone for abusive behaviour... My daughter (15 years old) has some not so nice experiences with a woman (28 years old) on Twitter. Being 'twitter' friends (not in real life) for some time, because they have the same idol, all went well until a few days ago. Last week this woman noticed that the 'idol' followed my daughter on twitter. There's nothing special with it. This famous person just wanted to ask something in private, and therefore followed my daughter, as you can only send direct messages to people who follow each other. When my daughters twitter friend noticed this, she reacted immediately very jealous and strange. She's tagging my daughter a few times a day now to express her dissapointment that my daughter has this follower and she hasn't. To make things more clear : view from what my daughter tells me and what I read on Twitter, this 28 year old woman, is sick...very sick.... My daughter already blocked her, but she keeps sending tweets with lies and ridiculous things and unfortunately tags this famous person each time in it. I can image it's not nice for a celebrity to receive all those messages (maybe this celebrity already blocked this woman, I don't know)... Anyway, my daughter doesn't feel well with all this. In this woman's profile, my daughter's name still appears as so called 'best friend', although they don't know each other in real life. This is going on now for a few days, and she won't stop, but can we report this as abusive ? Or does she really have to offend in a dangerous way before we can react ? Thanks a lot in advance, best regards solange
With the caveat that this is just my personal opinion, I've got to say that the woman's behavior seems about to cross the line between "just annoying" and "plain abusive." The fact that she's 28 whereas your daughter is only 15 makes it look even worse in my eyes. I recommend that you read what Twitter itself has to say about online abuse at https://support.twitter.com/articles/15794-online-abuse. If after reading it you decide to report that woman, you will find the appropriate link on the same page, and then you'll simply have to follow the instructions provided at the report form. I hope this helps. Good luck!
Thank you very much for your reply. I've been reading already what Twitter writes about this subject, but I was not sure if what's happening with my daughter was considered as 'really abusive' (in my personal opinion YES, but I guess Twitter has experienced already much worse). My daughter is afraid that if I report this woman, she will (suppose her account will be closed), appear again under another account and will continue using my daughters name while tagging this 'idol'. I replied this woman yesterday out of my name, but this made things only worse (bad idea of myself, but unfortunately too late). She thinks now that my daughter opened a second account and doesn't believe it's me asking her to stop with this behaviour. I guess we will wait for another 2 or 3 days and see if it calms down. If not, I will report her. Thanks again and greetz from Luxembourg ! best regards, Solange Coussement
If you have to even think about asking if it's abusive — it's abusive. Firstly it's a good lesson for your daughter. People online are mean and it will be awesome if she learns not to take insults on the internet seriously. I hope she's taking it well. Secondly, block the woman, report her, and maybe even share her username somewhere (here?) to get other people to report her, because one report usually doesn't do the trick. I hope everything ends well.
Thanks for your reply. It's been over one week now, and although she continues writing strange and ridiculous things, she doesn't mention my daughters' name anymore....that's for us the most important. My daughter blocked her but I still check what this woman writes everyday. I guess for us, the most clever thing to do was not reply anymore...and that helped. But it's true what you say, people online can be very mean and it's very frustrating...you can't do much about it (except reporting them, but than they'll come back with another account...you can't ban them from the internet, unfortunately).... And as for my daughter, I guess she learned from it....Although I warned her at the time she started corresponding with this woman, she learned more from the experience now than from listening to the first warning from her mum ;-) Actually, she's always careful, and she doesn't accept no matter who as 'friends' on Facebook or Twitter, but this time, she ran into it...I still don't understand how mean and hard people can be : threating you as best friends (online) and from one day to another (because of jealous feelings) they change there attitude and start being abusive...Hope it will stay calm now...but I'm staying alert ! Best regards, solange