Twitter Taboo

On my search for the eating disorders on social media, Twitter by far shocked me the most. I typed in the words ‘Pro Ana’ into the twitter search bar and what I found was worrying. Pages and pages of pro anorexia accounts. There is clearly no filter on the taboo of thinspiration, pro mia or pro ana content on twitter as I found pages of accounts for all three terms. The bio’s on these accounts all followed a similar structure; “HW CW LW UGW”. Each abbreviation would be followed by a number. I wanted to know what these abbreviations meant, so I tweeted @Formeranorexic , a recovered anorexic. The account posts encouraging words and support to those struggling with anorexia by sharing their story of recovery on twitter. The account informed me that these abbreviations meant High Weight, Current Weight, Low Weight, Ultimate Goal Weight.

Another common bio entry was “Trigger Warning”. When accounts warn other twitter users of this, it means that the content on their account has the potential to trigger or relapse an eating disorder or eating disorder behavior. This warning is no where near enough to protect the minds of people online susceptible to an eating disorder.

I am not skinny enough to be beautiful

I’ll stop faking smiles when I’m only skin and bones

These accounts are sharing tips, thoughts and images that all encourage eating disorders. One account I came across stated in their bio that they were looking for an ‘Ana buddy’. I wonder if she found one…and if she did, I wonder if that person was encouraged to become anorexic from the appealing prospect of ‘support’ and ‘friendship’.

School starts again tomorrow. I don’t have to eat all day, I can finally fast in peace

Make Twitter Safer

It’s obvious that some people holding these accounts are young, young enough to still be in school. These accounts are too easily made, the triggering taboo is too easily posted and the content is scarily frequent.

It’s clear that twitter are doing absolutely nothing to monitor the triggering content. I would have at least thought there would be a policy on thinspiration, like other social media sites. But no. One thing I did come across was a petition. It asked Twitter to ban thinspiration hashtags and to take responsibility for moderating harmful content. This petition was on the back of Twitters statement that declared they had no intention of taking steps to ban thinspiration content and searchable hashtags.

This petition was written in 2013 and it is upsetting to see that 4 years on still nothing has been done. A lot can happen in 4 years, the digital age is only growing which means more people online, more people on twitter and more people exposed to this dangerous content.