I’ve had Enough of Haters on Twitter

From being urged to commit suicide to having her looks mocked and to be called a 'frustrated whore' - life on social media for a nationalist hate figure in the media like Gligorijevic has long involved far more than responding to intelligent criticism of her actual work.

Here she describes over a period of a week what led up to her decision to quit Twitter, recalling the kind of chauvinist insults that she - and other women in the media in the Balkans - routinely face.

Monday, May 27th

It's an odd fact that I received an invitation to write this journal only a moment after I decided to deactivate my Twitter account. Let me tell you few facts about myself: I'm a female journalist and editor. I'm a feminist. I'm a depression survivor who wrote and spoke publicly about that horrible experience. Everything I ever said or wrote was and will be used against of me in the court of Twitter.

So, fast forward, last Friday I had sort of a dispute on Twitter with an acquaintance. It escalated faster than ever: within a moment someone already tweeted to him: "Don't say that, Jovana is going to become suicidal again." Then, someone else twitted: "Like this tweet to encourage her to kill herself." (It's been deleted meanwhile.) I had a strong feeling of disgust, so I simply deactivated account. I'm back today, and guess what? It's still a topic. My first tweet was: "I'm sorry to inform my haters, I didn't kill myself." One person tweeted to me they're sorry, too. I wanted to discuss this issue, but most of the people on Twitter, people who generally have good opinion about me, decided it was not important. "Why do you even bother yourself?" they asked. "Just block them and move on," they said.

Of course I'll report and block them,...

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