A Qualitative Analysis of Disclosing Sexual Victimization by #NotOkay During the 2016 Presidential Election

Abstract

This study sought to characterize disclosures of sexual victimization using the Twitter hashtag #NotOkay, which emerged before the 2016 presidential election. A random sample of 777 original English language tweets that contained the hashtag “#NotOkay” were garnered through NCapture software over a 5-day period. Content analysis was conducted using NVivo software. Only tweets that reflected personal disclosures of sexual victimization were included in the analysis. Disclosures included seven major themes pertaining to the characteristics of the assault(s), including (1) a description of the perpetrator; (2) type of assault; (3) age at the time of victimization; (4) location of the assault; (5) perpetrator tactics; (6) beliefs about why the assault occurred; and (7) the emotional impact on the victim. This study identified several common themes in the content of sexual assault disclosure on Twitter. Future research can explore whether social media is a cathartic platform for disclosure and how responses to disclosure on social media influence recovery following sexual victimization.

Introduction

Sexual violence–defined as any sexual act committed in the absence of freely given consent–is a pervasive public health problem (Black et al. 2011). Although most experiences of sexual victimization are not reported to the police (Paul et al. 2013), many survivors discuss their experience with someone they know and trust (Ahrens et al. 2009; Orchowski and Gidycz 2012). Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory (Kennedy-Lightsey et al. 2012) has recently been applied by Pluretti and Chesebro (2015) to explain some of the factors that motivate how and to whom survivors of sexual victimization disclose their experience. Specifically, Pluretti and Chesebro highlight the impact of CPM theory on survivors' reported rationales for disclosing and worries during disclosure, and the impact of recipient response on outcomes of the disclosure. Importantly, in addition to the response of the disclosure recipient, regaining a sense of control over one's experience is a vital component of recovery following trauma (Frazier 2003). Survivors who disclose their experience often fear that their privacy will not be maintained (Ullman and Peter-Hagene 2014), or that they will be responded to negatively by a support provider (Orchowski et al. 2013a). Survivors who hold a high level of self-blame (Tillman et al. 2010) or internalized stigma surrounding sexual victimization are unlikely to talk with others about their experience (Miller et al. 2011). While some survivors may disclose to deliberately garner emotional support (Sorenson and Snow 1991), survivors may also be prompted to disclose by support providers who notice their distress (Ahrens et al. 2007), or as a result of conversations or educational programs that address gender-based violence (Karen et al. 1999; Paine and Hansen 2002).

Online forums and social media communities offer a novel opportunity for understanding the content of sexual assault disclosure, as disclosures that occur within these spaces are documented and preserved. Social media sites are widely used as platforms for sharing personal experiences (Fawcett and Shrestha 2016; Weathers et al. 2016) and engaging in public discourse (Cravens et al. 2015; Yang 2016). To the authors' knowledge, Moors and Webber's (2012) descriptive analysis of disclosure of sexual victimization on a Yahoo! Answers thread is the only study to date that examines the content of sexual assault disclosure in an online forum. While this study adds to the literature by describing the relationship between discloser and respondent in this online space, the study is limited by its focus on a relatively small sample of individuals (n = 32), who were specifically seeking help through the online forum. Given that not all disclosure is for the purpose of seeking help (Ahrens et al. 2007), research is needed to understand how survivors disclose outside of formal help-seeking contexts. In addition, Fawcett and Shrestha (2016) completed a thematic analysis of 30 blog posts written by sexual violence survivors. While this critical analysis expanded current knowledge of sexual assault disclosure in online forums, sample size was limited, and discussion focused on three emergent themes–aftermath of abuse, the need for support, and helping others. Therefore, more research is needed to explore the content of what survivors say when they disclose, and how disclosure on a forum such as Twitter may differ from disclosures facilitated through personal blogs.

Twitter is an online social media site created in 2006 with over 313 million monthly users who read, post, and respond in short 140-character messages known as “tweets” (Twitter 2017). Although tweets often reflect personal content, the use of a “hashtag” in a tweet can link an individual to a larger online community, allowing for community narrative formation and information exchange (Yang 2016). Hashtags are defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2017) as “a word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text (such as a tweet).” The use of a hashtag on Twitter can be motivated by daily news events, or may also be called for by members of a community. Content analysis of popular Twitter hashtags therefore offers a rich opportunity to study the convergence of public and personal discourse as well as the process of community formation (Weathers et al. 2016). Although prior research documents how social media platforms open up spaces for disclosing experiences of domestic violence on Twitter (Cravens et al. 2015; Weathers et al. 2016), research has yet to examine how individuals disclose sexual victimization in this forum.

Twitter also provides a unique opportunity for users to interact with anonymity. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not enforce a real name clause in user agreements. Instead, users adopt handles that mask identity and may choose not to share biographical, demographic, or personally identifying information (Fox et al. 2015). Online anonymity has contributed to the development of alternative cyber-psyches, as well as online communities that behave counter to normative social expectations (Suler 2004). The term online disinhibition effect has been coined to explicate the phenomena of users displaying behaviors online, which they would not typically perform in face-to-face interactions (Suler 2004). A key tenet of the online disinhibition effect is dissociative anonymity, which allows individuals to minimize identity connection and distance online behaviors from the physical self (Fox et al. 2015). According to Zimmerman and Ybarra (2016), the anonymity provided online allows individuals to behave without fear of negative evaluation from others, and permits internet users to attempt new behaviors or mimic methods of self-expression that they see modeled online. Anonymity and online disinhibition may therefore impact Twitter users' willingness to disclose sensitive personal experiences.

#NotOkay: a call for disclosure of sexual victimization on twitter

On October 7th, 2016, Canadian writer Kelly Oxford sent out a tweet calling on women to discuss their own experiences of sexual victimization on Twitter, writing: “Women: tweet me your first assaults. They aren't just stats. I'll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my ‘p—y’ and smiles at me, I'm 12.” In a second tweet, Kelly Oxford wrote: “Women: keep tweeting me assaults with #NotOkay. Here was my second assault: Boy in drama class grabbed my ‘pussy’ during class, I was 13,” which directed users to include the hashtag #NotOkay. Oxford's call for tweets followed the release of a 2005 audiotape recording from Access Hollywood that documented presidential candidate Donald Trump describing the use of celebrity status to garner sexual activity with women (e.g., “when you're a star, they let you do it”) and statements that could be interpreted as perpetration of sexual aggression (“Grab them by the pussy…you can do anything”) (Fahrenthold 2016). Over one million tweets with the hashtag #NotOkay were written within 14 h, launching a social media community that addressed the intersection between personal experiences of sexual violence and the 2016 presidential election (Bush 2016; O'Brien 2016). The high number of tweets utilizing the hashtag #NotOkay during the 2016 presidential election offers a timely and unprecedented opportunity to examine the characteristics of sexual assault disclosure on social media. In this study, the authors sought to characterize disclosures of sexual victimization within a randomly selected subsample of tweets using the hashtag #NotOkay.

Methods

Data collection procedures, processing, and analysis plan

Tweets including the hashtag “NotOkay” were downloaded from Twitter using the NVivo addition NCapture. The hashtag #NotOkay trended on Twitter on October 10th, 2016. Data collection began on October 11th, 2016. Data were collected from Twitter from October 11th to October 20th. Data were collected at 4:15 PM on five non-consecutive weekdays. This method ensured that data would be captured during hours of similar online traffic, to avoid bias by collecting on higher traffic weekends.

Data collection procedures followed the ethical merits of internet-based research using publicly available data (Eysenbach and Till 2001; Whitehead 2007). As NCapture collects only tweets that are available on Twitter's public API stream, this study was considered exempt from IRB approval and no formal informed consent process was required. NCapture allows researchers to gather the following data: Tweet ID, username, tweet text, time tweeted, tweet type (i.e., retweet or original content tweet), retweeted by, number of retweets, hashtags used, online mentions, name, location, web URL, user bio, number of user tweets, number of followers, and number of users following. Researchers collected only publicly accessible tweets and removed profile identifiers (i.e., username and profile description) and identifying information (i.e., geographic location, age, sex, relationship status, occupation, socioeconomic status, race, and religion), to maintain ethical standards of online data collection and protect user anonymity.

The initial dataset contained 2072 tweets. After removing irrelevant tweets, retweets, and non-English language tweets, the final dataset contained 777 original content tweets. For the purpose of this study, only tweets coded as disclosures were included in the analysis (n = 203). Researchers defined disclosures as any tweet that shared any type of sexual assault, abuse, or harassment experience—along the continuum of violence—or identified the twitter user as a survivor themselves (an implicit disclosure of violence victimization). Interrater reliability in the identification of tweets that represented a disclosure was high, with a Cohen's kappa of 0.89 and a percent agreement of 97.6. To develop a nuanced codebook accounting for the dialogic, narrative form of tweets, coders followed Mayring's (2000) iterative content analysis procedures. These steps include (1) selecting units of analysis, (2) creating categories, and (3) establishing themes. Given the authors' knowledge of the extant literature, they concluded that a mixed inductive and preconstructed codebook allowed the team to be conscious of the preexisting frameworks they would bring to the data, while also leaving space for emergent themes. This methodology aligns with other content analyses of tweets (i.e., Cravens et al. 2015).

Specifically, the preliminary codebook was constructed based on iterative coding of the first 25% sample of tweets. Independent, open coding using NVivo software at project outset allowed three coders to individually establish underlying themes. Team members met throughout the coding process to assess relevance and validity of the preliminary codebook. Each of the themes was assessed for frequency, and any theme that occurred more than 10 times was retained. The final coding frame included seven major themes (Table 1). After establishing this codebook, the full sample of tweets was coded by two independent researchers.

Table 1.

Disclosure of Sexual Victimization Through the Hashtag #NotOkay

Theme	n (%)	Description	Example
Who	118 (58%)	Identity of perpetrator	@kellyoxford -7th gr band teacher, 11th gr history teacher, dads at babysitting jobs, 1st frat party, etc.. it is simply #NOTOKAY
What	149 (73%)	Type of violence	@kellyoxford my “friend” restrained my hands, touched me, and kissed me when I didn't want to be kissed. I was 18. #NotOkay
When	112 (55%)	Age at time of violence experience	@kellyoxford Fondled by a 9 y.o. boy I babysat at 14. Raped by former college athlete at 19. Raped by serial rapist at 23. #NotOkay
Where	85 (42%)	Location of violence experience	@kellyoxford my 8th grade graduation party: digital rape. High school: continuous sexual, oral and anal rape. #NotOkay
			@kellyoxford #NotOkay to be groped on the subway, harassed on my own street (the guy could see where I lived), followed by a perv on a bike.
Why	22 (11%)	Reasons that victim believes they were abused	Random guy on the street calling me a bitch because I didn't smile when he made a lewd joke #NotOkay
			My father raped me at the age of 8 he said he was teaching me how to service a man for 4 years I missed 42 days of school a year #NotOkay
How	69 (34%)	Method that perpetrator used to engage in sexual aggression	When I was a teenage mother, my boss called me in the back room to talk about work and “grabbed my pussy.” #NotOkay @kellyoxford
Emotional impact	68 (33%)	Emotional or psychological effect(s) of violence	#NotOkay moments in my life stunned, embarrassed, scared. Groped by friend's father-10. French kissed by friend's father-20. Stop!

Note: Coding of themes was not mutually exclusive.

Results

Character limits in tweets required that users condense the details of their assault experiences into 140 characters or less. Disclosures included assault characteristics (i.e., who, what, where, when, and how), beliefs about why victimization occurred, and a description of the aftermath of the assault. These themes were labeled as follows: (1) characteristics of the perpetrator; (2) type of assault; (3) age at the time of the assault; (4) location; (5) tactics utilized by the perpetrator; (6) beliefs about why the assault occurred; and (7) the emotional impact on the victim (Table 1). Some tweets included only one of the aforementioned disclosure characteristics, whereas others included up to six characteristics.

Characteristics of the perpetrator

Over half of tweets disclosing sexual victimization referenced some characteristic of the perpetrator (58%, n = 118), including age, gender, or their relationship to the victim. For example:

“I'm 16. My manager at a fast food chain pushes me against the wall with his pelvis to tell me it's my turn to mop. #NotOkay”

“I was 14 when older distant relative creepily put his arm around me. Scared to death! Thank God my parents came home! #RapeCulture #NotOkay”

A description of the perpetrator often included reference to the power imbalance between the victim and perpetrator, whether through social position (i.e., a boss or religious leader) or family hierarchy (a father, an uncle, or other older, male family member). The majority of tweets that described the identity of the perpetrator described the attacker as someone known to the victim (54%, n = 64).

Type of assault

Over 73% of the tweets conveying victimization experiences (n = 149) provided explicit descriptions of the type of victimization, commonly identifying which parts of their body were violated:

“#NotOkay 1st assault: 7 years old. friend of girlfriend's family 50-years-old man slipped finger inside my panties and rubbed my crotch. Gross.”

“#NotOkay not just women-old guy grabbed my penis in the back of a musty used book store when i was 11 in a little town in missouri.”

Some individuals reprised Donald Trump's language from the Access Hollywood tapes to describe their abuse, describing experiences where they were also “grabbed by the pussy.” Other users drew connections between the language used by Trump and their own victimization experiences, without specifically mentioning Trump's campaign or candidacy:

“I was 12 when middle aged dude grabbed my pussy while I walked home from school. #lockertalk #sexualassault #NotOkay”

“My first sexual assault was when I was quite young being grabbed BTP by one of my big brother's friends. Date rape +2 more rapes. #NotOkay”

Donald Trump's admission that he grabs women “by the pussy” was shortened into an acronym (i.e., BTP), potentially as a result of Twitter's 140-character limit.

Age at the time of the assault

Over half of tweets disclosing a victimization experience (55%) included the age at the time of the experience (n = 112). Many respondents indicated that they experienced sexual violence during childhood (before the age of 18), and that other assaults had occurred throughout the lifespan. For example,

“Scared to talk about this but it's TIME. Was raped at age 9 by [NAME]'s 1st son #NotOkay”

“@kellyoxford Where do I begin? Started when I was 5, with my stepgrandfather touching me; ended when I was 12 #NotOkay”

Furthermore, of the 112 respondents who disclosed their age at the time of their victimization experience, 74% (n = 83) stated that they were younger than 18 years.

Location

A sizable number of disclosures (42%, n = 85) referenced where the victimization experience occurred. Some tweets reflected the isolation of the victim:

“#NotOkay I'm 20, hanging out with friends & boyfriend. I ask for aspirin. In bathroom the host grabs me & French kisses me. Stunned/silent”

“party 13 yrs old asked where bathroom was male escorted me through bedroom-waited then tried to kiss and pushed onto bed. #NotOkay”

Tweets also reflected public victimization experiences, highlighting how perpetrators committed acts of violence in shared public spaces such as crowded subways and buses. In these situations, several users highlighted how onlookers failed to come to their aide. For example:

“#NotOkay I'm 17, leaving Rome. Customs agent grabs me ‘a la Trump’ during pat down. Everyone sees I protest. He smiles. Told to let it go”

Disclosure of abuse perpetrated in public spaces commonly referenced how a crowded space provided cover for the abuse to occur. The public nature of the crime was also perceived to exacerbate the impact of the crime, which was suffered in front of others who failed to intervene.

Beliefs about why the assault occurred

Some tweets (11%, n = 22) offered a reason why the user believed they experienced sexual victimization. Tweets also linked sexual violence to other forms of oppression:

“I was 15 when my 18 y/o classmate said ‘I can turn u straight’ while getting on top of me and unzipping his pants. In class. #NotOkay”

“A not stereotypically ‘pretty’ woman, I'm hit on anyway. Predators seem to think it's an easy win, or they're doing me a favor. #NotOkay”

The aforementioned responses highlight a belief among survivors that they were targeted potentially as a result of identifying with a marginalized group, or because they would be seen as an easy target. Tweets from other users also identified the perpetrators' desire to exert power and control as a potential reason for the assault. For example,

“@kellyoxford oh my God- I had blacked this one out-a group-‘we have a right to you!’ grabbed everything-I was 7 #NotOkay”

“@kellyoxford He was waiting outside when we left. I was the ‘bitch’ that got him kicked out. #NotOkay”

As highlighted above, Twitter users described the role of misogyny, traditional gender role beliefs, and adversarial attitudes toward women in their experiences of sexual assault.

Tactics utilized by the perpetrator

Approximately one-third of disclosures described the tactics used by the perpetrator (34%, n = 69), including isolation, persistence, intimidation, grooming, coercion/verbal pressure, physical force, and surprise. For example,

“#NotOkay guy jumps out of bushes w/gun in hand intent on rape. I was 13”

“@kellyoxford Older man comes up behind me in an arcade in las vegas and rubs his penis against me. I'm 11 years old. #NotOkay”

Tweets highlighted a range of various perpetration tactics, including taking advantage of women who were too intoxicated to resist.

Emotional impact

One-third of respondents who disclosed sexual violence experiences (33%, n = 68) tweeted about the emotional aftermath of sexual victimization, including posttraumatic stress (e.g., nightmares and traumatic memories), as well as feelings of injustice and betrayal. Some users also shared that the #NotOkay tag itself was “triggering,” bringing them to reexperience traumatic memories. For example,

“@kellyoxford I can believe all the (terrible) memories that #NotOkay is bringing to the surface of my mind. So many bad things happened 2 me”

Other users shared that, although they would like to respond to the hashtag, their symptoms were too severe or debilitating for them to respond:

“#NotOkay that I would like to speak up, but I am too afraid and feel disgusted when remembering… And in one incident I was 12 years old.”

“I can't. Partly cuz I think I was 1st abused b4 I can remember (2 yo), but also cuz it hurts too much. #NotOkay”

Recollections of assault were associated with feelings of fear, anger, sadness, self-blame, and rumination. Users also shared feeling that their assault or abuse experience was inescapable, and that such experiences had a lasting impact on both physical and psychological well-being:

“I remember every assault like it happened yesterday. It lives in my body. It takes up space. I remember. Do they?”

“@kellyoxford Ages 5, 9, 15, 17, and 19. It's 20 years later & I am still struggling with the belief that they were my fault. #NotOkay”

Respondents also endorsed revictimization experiences, citing that they had experienced multiple assaults throughout the lifespan.

Discussion

This analysis of a random sample of tweets with the hashtag #NotOkay when disclosing sexual victimization in this space, survivors most frequently conceptualized their experience by telling others about the “who, what, where, when, why” and “how” of their assault(s). Due to Twitter's enforced 140-character limit, it is feasible that people who chose to disclose a victimization experience through Twitter were forced to prioritize the aspects of their assault or abuse that they found most vital to their experience.

The nature of the assault experience (73%) and age at the time of the assault (55%) were commonly disclosed. Kelly Oxford's call for disclosures included her own age at the time of the assault and the type of victimization. It is therefore possible that her tweet provided a template for other survivors disclosing their experiences through #NotOkay. Her request to disclose first assault experiences may also have prompted users to disclose experiences of childhood sexual victimization. It was notable that the majority of tweets described the identity of the perpetrator as someone known to the victim. These disclosures help to debunk the myth that sexual assault is perpetrated by a stranger (Waterhouse et al. 2016). Approximately one-third of disclosure tweets (34%) referenced the tactics utilized by the perpetrator, and 11% indicated a reason the assault occurred. These reasons tended to focus on factors outside of the victim's control (e.g., race, ethnicity, and the perpetrator themselves). It is possible that these reasons may have been stated explicitly by the perpetrator, or reflected the survivor's own conceptualization of the experience. Notably, disclosure of sexual violence tends to be associated with attributing blame to the perpetrator (Starzynski et al. 2005). It is therefore possible that survivors who chose to disclose their victimization experiences through the #NotOkay tag had already processed their victimization experiences to the point at which they were able to assign blame to the perpetrator, or had already managed their own potential feelings of self-blame. With this in mind, it is likely that many more individuals who use Twitter experienced sexual violence than those who chose to disclose, and that the number of people who did not disclose their experiences using #NotOkay may have experienced higher self-blame than those who employed the tag as a tool of disclosure.

Researchers also witnessed a sizable number of tweets describing experiences where users reported being “grabbed by the pussy.” Kelly Oxford's call for disclosure through hashtag #NotOkay occurred only hours after Donald Trump admitted to “grabbing [women] by the pussy.” In the days that followed, Trump and others framed this admission as “locker room talk”—condoning his behavior, normalizing the degradation of women in private conversations between men, and delegitimizing this act as a form of violence against women. It is therefore possible that survivors who were also “grabbed by the pussy” were triggered when Donald Trump's disclosure of engaging in this behavior was minimized by his supporters, and took to Twitter to reclaim the legitimacy of their experience and the harm associated with it. Specifically, experiences of physical violence and violation that targeted (cisgender) women's genitalia may have appeared more saliently as a result of Donald Trump's own admission.

It was notable that a sizable number of tweets in the sample did not reflect a disclosure of sexual victimization, and were excluded from analysis. Twitter was a popular forum for engaging in political dialogue during the 2016 election, and the volume of politically affiliated tweets that were excluded from this study—which exceeded the number of personal disclosures in this sample—suggest that #NotOkay functioned as a forum not only for personal disclosure but also as a forum for discussing broader issues relating to sexual violence. Therefore, it is possible that some survivors were negatively impacted by the use of #NotOkay to discuss topics outside of sexual assault (i.e., to endorse a specific candidate for office, or to comment on rape culture in general). Existing literature on sexual assault disclosure and response indicates that responses that draw attention away from the survivor's experience are seen as distracting—they do not prioritize the needs of the survivor, and instead give the impression that the support provider would rather focus on something else (Ullman 2010). It is therefore feasible that the cooptation of #NotOkay for political discourse may therefore have communicated to survivors that the climate of the forum was not hospitable to survivors, despite the intended purpose of #NotOkay as an avenue for disclosure of trauma.

This content analysis of tweets using the #NotOkay tag to characterize disclosures of sexual violence fills a significant gap in extant literature by not only examining a relatively large sample of prompted disclosures but also by outlining specifically what survivors choose to share when they are invited to disclose in a public forum. It is feasible that survivors were compelled by the 140-character limit on Twitter to only disclose the parts of their victimization experience more salient to them. However, an alternative potentiality must also be explored: it is possible that survivors instead shared the parts of their experiences that they believed would be considered particularly compelling to a social media community (i.e., Twitter). For example, it is possible that they assumed other Twitter users would respond more strongly to discussion of certain aspects of their experience, and were therefore more willing to share the “shocking” aspects of the trauma, rather than the parts of their victimization that have most strongly influenced their own day-to-day lives. As such, future research should examine whether survivors disclosed the aspects of their violence experiences that impacted them most severely, or aspects that they believed were most appropriate to disclose in this public forum.

It is also important to acknowledge the overall popularity of the #NotOkay tag, and the larger social implication that a hashtag such as this trended so widely. The widespread utilization of #NotOkay illustrates the pervasiveness of sexual violence. In addition, the popularity of commentary through #NotOkay illustrates suggests that survivors may be particularly likely to disclose their experiences to an online community, and the possibility that social media platforms are perceived as a particularly safe or meaningful platform for disclosure. While users who disclosed online may still have been subjected to harmful social reactions, such as distracting or egocentric responses, it is possible that this forum protected them from experiencing other potentially problematic reactions to disclosure, such as a respondent's facial expression, tone of voice, or body language (Ullman 2010). It is therefore possible that individuals who are especially sensitive to physical cues and reactions felt safer and more compelled to disclose victimization experiences online.

Limitations

Although analysis of Twitter data allows the opportunity to examine a range of public opinions, tweets are short and do not provide an opportunity for in-depth examination of an individual's experience, which is typically a hallmark of qualitative research. There are also limitations of using publicly available social media data (e.g., Giglietto et al. 2013). For example, it is unclear whether respondents in this study were frequent or infrequent users of Twitter, which limits the generalizability of these findings. Furthermore, although demographic information and geographic location of the users in this sample were collected by NCapture, this information was not included in the analysis. Inclusion of these characteristics could be seen as identifying information and infringe upon Twitter users' privacy, and to maintain currently accepted ethics of social media analysis, demographic information was excluded from data collection. As a result, comparisons of disclosures and public opinion could not be made as a function of the demographic characteristics or geographic location of users. To address this limitation, future research should examine how demographic characteristics such as race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation are associated with disclosure of sexual victimization online.

While researchers were able to code for type of victimization, with 73% of tweets providing explicit descriptions of the type of victimization, the 140-character limit of each disclosure precluded coding each tweet as representative of a specific type of violence (i.e., attempted assault vs. rape vs. unwanted sexual contact, etc.). This sample size also precluded examining whether survivors were particularly likely to disclose experiences perpetrated by specific types of perpetrators, such as a stranger versus an acquaintance or family member. Future analyses should therefore examine whether individuals are likely to disclose specific types of violence on social media platforms, while also keeping in mind that survivors use a wide range of labels to describe their experience (Orchowski et al. 2013b).

Recent examination of Twitter user demographics indicates that younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to use Twitter (36% of 18–29-year olds are active on Twitter, versus 10% of adults over the age of 65; Pew Research Center, 2016). Twitter is also slightly more popular among Americans with college degrees, compared with those who have received a high school diploma (Pew Research Center, 2016). Therefore, it is possible that this sample of tweets was drawn from younger, more educated Twitter users, and findings may not be generalized to the larger population. Furthermore, for consistency, data were collected at the same time on weekdays. It is feasible that individuals who tweet primarily after working hours, in the evening, or on weekends were not included in analyses. Similarly, using single time points on separate days meant that tweets from ongoing conversations between multiple users were not captured. It is also possible that researchers, despite best efforts to be aware of their personal biases, may have allowed their values to shape their interpretations of the data.

Research implications

This descriptive analysis establishes a basis for subsequent qualitative research, further examining experiences of individuals who utilized #NotOkay, and disclosure of violence victimization online. Collecting fine details about what survivors say when they disclose through survey or interview is challenging due to retrospective recall biases associated with researching prior events. Online forums and social media platforms may serve as ideal outlets to advance the literature in how survivors conceptualize their experiences when self-identifying as a survivor. Moreover, future research should examine whether individuals feel more motivated to disclose, or experience greater catharsis, when sharing with an online community of self-identified survivors.

In future studies, it would be useful to employ a mixed-methods approach to understand why Twitter users utilized #NotOkay with such frequency, and understand the impact of disclosing victimization in this forum, at this time in history. It is possible that survivors might be particularly likely to disclose sensitive experiences in online forums that allow anonymity (see Suler 2004). Furthermore, it is possible that individuals who interacted with the #NotOkay tag experienced vicarious or secondary trauma as a result of participating in the emotionally charged forum. Future research should assess whether interacting with the tag resulted in social good (catharsis, feelings of support, the creation of an online support network, and improved knowledge of resources) or harm (mental health consequences and silencing) among survivors.

Clinical and policy implications

Although there is surprisingly little research on the disclosure of sexual victimization using online forums, some survivors turn to online disclosure because they feel it is their only option, cannot access available resources, or do not anticipate supportive responses from family and friends (Moors and Webber 2012). Online interventions may access those people who do not perceive their social networks to be supportive or who feel isolated. Twitter is being explored as a medium for the delivery of public health intervention (Prasetyo et al. 2015; Shepherd et al. 2015). Although most public health agencies use Twitter to broadcast information, rather than engage in dialogue (Lovejoy et al. 2012), it would be suitable to explore how agencies can use social media to support survivors and change problematic norms. Geographical Information Systems mapping can be utilized to ascertain the density of health problems reported by Twitter users (Bartlett and Wurtz 2015), and deliver targeted doses of interventions to those located in areas with the highest risk.

Conclusion

This study describes how an online forum galvanized individuals to disclose personal experiences of sexual victimization. Findings allow researchers to examine what information sexual violence survivors choose to prioritize when they disclose a victimization experience through an online platform. Moving forward, research is needed to understand how individuals respond to disclosure within online communities, and whether disclosure in this space is cathartic. If disclosure of sexual violence in online communities is found to be cathartic for survivors, and promote systems-level change in the factors that sustain violence, it may be useful for researchers and practitioners to explore how to utilize Twitter and other online platforms to support survivors and reduce the widespread problem of sexual assault.

Footnotes

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

References

Ahrens

, Cabral

, Abeling

. (2009). Healing or hurtful: Sexual assault survivors' interpretations of social reactions from support providers. Psychol Women Q. 33, 81–94.

Ahrens

, Campbell

, Ternier-Thames

, et al. (2007). Deciding whom to tell: Expectations and outcomes of rape survivors' first disclosures. Psychol Women Q. 31, 38–49.

Bartlett

, Wurtz

. (2015). Twitter and public health. J Public Health Manag Pract. 21, 375–383.

Black

, Basile

, Breiding

, et al. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 summary report. (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA.)

Bush

. (2016). The hidden sexism that could sway the election. Retrieved March 31, 2017 from www.pbs.org/newshour/features/hidden-sexism/

Cravens

, Whiting

, Aamar

. (2015). Why I stayed/left: An analysis of voices of intimate partner violence on social media. Contemp Fam Ther. 37, 372–385.

Eysenbach

, Till

. (2001). Ethical issues in qualitative research on internet communities. Br Med J. 323, 1103–1105.

Fahrenthold

. (2016, October 8). Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversations about women in 2005. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com (accessed October 11 2016 ).

Fawcett

, Shrestha

. (2016). Blogging about sexual assault: A thematic analysis. J Forensic Pract. 18, 39–51.

10.

Fox

, Cruz

, Young Lee

. (2015). Perpetuating online sexism offline: Anonymity, interactivity, and the effects of sexist hashtags on social media. Comput Hum Behav. 52, 436–442.

11.

Frazier

. (2003). Perceived control and distress following sexual assault: A longitudinal test of a new model. J Pers Soc Psychol. 84, 1257–1269.

12.

Giglietto

, Rossi

, Bennato

. (2013). The open laboratory: Limits and possibilities of using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as a research data source. J Technol Hum Serv. 30, 145–159.

13.

Karen

, Dunn

, Vail-Smith

. (1999). What date/acquaintance rape victims tell others: A study of college student recipients of disclosure. J Am Coll Health. 47, 213–219.

14.

Kennedy-Lightsey

, Martin

, Thompson

, et al. (2012). Communication privacy management theory: Exploring coordination and ownership between friends. Commun Q. 60, 665–680.

15.

Lovejoy

, Waters

, Saxton

. (2012). Engaging stakeholders through Twitter: How nonprofit organizations are getting more out of 140 characters or less. Public Relat Rev. 38, 313–318.

16.

Mayring

. (2000). Qualitative content analysis. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1. Retrieved April 15, 2000 from www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1089/2385

17.

Miller

, Canales

, Amacker

, et al. (2011). Stigma-threat motivated nondisclosure of sexual assault and sexual revictimization. Psychol Women Q. 35, 119–128.

18.

Moors

, Webber

. (2012). The dance of disclosure: Online self-disclosure of sexual assault. Qual Soc Work. 12, 799–815.

19.

O'Brien

. (2016). “Sexual assault and the Trump tape: 1 million women say it's #NotOkay.” CNNMoney, New York. Retrieved from money.cnn.com

20.

Orchowski

, Gidycz

. (2012). To whom do college women confide following sexual assault? A prospective study of predictors of sexual assault disclosure and social reactions. Violence Against Women., 18, 264–288.

21.

Orchowski

, Untied

, Gidycz

. (2013a). Social reactions to disclosure of sexual victimization and adjustment among survivors of sexual assault. J Interpers Violence. 28, 2005–2023.

22.

Orchowski

, Untied

, Gidycz

. (2013b). Factors associated with college women's labeling of sexual victimization. Violence Vict. 28, 940–958.

23.

Paine

, Hansen

. (2002). Factors influencing children to self-disclose sexual abuse. Clin Psychol Rev. 22, 271–295.

24.

Paul

, Walsh

, McCauley

, et al. (2013). College women's experiences with rape disclosure: A national study. Violence Against Women. 19, 486–502.

25.

Pew Research Center. (2016). Social media update 2016. Pew Research, Internet & Technology. Retrieved from pewinternet.org

26.

Pluretti

, Chesebro

. (2015). Managing privacy and the decision to disclose: Disclosures of sexual victimization. Commun Q. 63, 550–567.

27.

Prasetyo

, Hauff

, Nguyen

, et al. (2015). On the impact of twitterbased health campaigns: A cross-country analysis of movember. Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Health Text Mining and Information Analysis, Lisbon, Portugal, 2015. doi:10.18653/v1/W15-2607

28.

Shepherd

, Sanders

, Doyle

, Shaw

. (2015). Using social media for support and feedback by mental health service users: Thematic analysis of a twitter conversation. BMC Psychiatry. 15, 408–426.

29.

Sorenson

, Snow

. (1991). How children tell: The process of disclosure in child sexual abuse. Child Welfare. 70, 3–15.

30.

Starzynski

, Ullman

, Filipas

, Townsend

. (2005). Correlates of women's sexual assault disclosure to informal and formal support sources. Violence Vict. 20, 417–432.

31.

Suler

. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychol Behav. 7, 321–326.

32.

Tillman

, Bryant-Davis

, Smith

, Marks

. (2010). Shattering silence: Exploring barriers to disclosure for African American sexual assault survivors. Trauma Violence Abuse. 11, 59–70.

33.

Twitter, Inc. (2017). “About - Our Company.” Retrieved April 13, 2017 from https://about.twitter.com

34.

Ullman

. (2010). Talking About Sexual Assault: Society's Response to Survivors. (American Psychological Association, Washington, DC).

35.

Ullman

, Peter-Hagene

. (2014). social reactions to sexual assault disclosure, coping, perceived control, and ptsd symptoms in sexual assault victims. J Community Psychol. 42, 495–508.

36.

Waterhouse

, Reynolds

, Egan

. (2016). Myths and legends: The reality of rape offences reported to a UK police force. Eur J Psychol Appl Legal Context. 8, 1–10.

37.

Weathers

, Sanderson

, Neal

, Gramlich

. (2016). From Silence to #WhyIStayed: Locating our stories and finding our voices. Qual Res Rep Commun. 17, 60–67.

38.

Whitehead

. (2007). Methodological and ethical issues in internet–mediated research in the field of health: An integrated review of the literature. Soc Sci Med. 65, 782–791.

39.

Yang

. (2016). Narrative agency in hashtag activism: The case of #BlackLivesMatter. Media Commun. 4, 13–17.

40.

Zimmerman

, Ybarra

. (2016). Online aggression: The influences of anonymity and social modeling. Psychol Popular Media Cult. 5, 181–193.