Even talk show host Melissa Harris-Perry isn’t immune to cyber bullying. Harris-Perry told viewers over the weekend that she’s become less active online as a result of harassment she’s received from followers.
“It is having an effect. It’s literally quieting whatever little digital voice I would have otherwise had,” Harris-Perry said on her MSNBC talk show.
Harris-Perry, who used to love Twitter, now feels apprehensive about using the social media platform.
“I am at a point where I don’t retweet anything that I really like because I fear I would send all of my haters, all of the harassment that comes to me, over to some person who doesn’t deserve it,” she said
Online harassment comes in all forms from name calling, to sexual harassment, and even physical threats. A recent Pew study shows that over 40% of people have been harassed over the Internet at some point. Women face the most extreme forms of harassment: sexual harassment and stalking.
Harris-Perry says this digital isolation is another form of terrorism.
“That kind of isolationism is what terrorism is. It is to isolate and separate us,” she said.