By Elizabeth Williams

Its been an awful year on social media. Filtering didnt help. I left Twitter a week ago and havent looked back.

這是在社交媒體上過得很糟糕的一年。過濾也沒用。一周前我放棄了推特，再也沒有回頭。

Cant decide yet who won—the trolls or me. Its still too soon to tell. All I know is that its been a week so far since I bailed on Twitter and I feel fine.

I love social media. I hate social media. You too？ Over the years， Ive been perpetually readjusting my relationship with it， working hard to avoid the creep of saturation2. Im not on Snapchat or LinkedIn either.3 You couldnt drag me into a comments section.

And then theres Twitter.

When you work at home， Twitter makes for an excellent water cooler4. I have for years skated by on the illusion that the bright， witty， passionately engaged people I follow there are somehow my colleagues， the friends I can make daily conversation with about politics and television and health.

I have even been lucky enough to make a few offline friends and work contacts through it， one of whom Im going out for beers with tonight， in fact. If you come to Twitter because you like smart people who can also make you laugh， you will not be disappointed. And its free！ The only cost is a steady stream of crap from the worst dregs5 of humanity.

I got on Twitter in the spring of 2008. I dont recall how soon afterward I was first called an ugly bitch， but to my recollection it took a while. Sure， every now and then thered be an unpleasant mention in my feed or aggressively unsolicited feedback from an opinionated egg avatar.6 But I never seriously reconsidered my presence until a few years later， when I wrote a magazine story that negatively referenced a well-known media misogynist7.

Within moments I was getting death threats—as in， Ill come to your house and murder you. I had been in the thick of a crowd at a concert at the time the responses started pouring in， and I remember being overwhelmed with a feeling of paranoid8 dread. Suddenly， it felt as if anyone in that throng could be someone who actively wanted to hurt me. And not just me， I hasten to mention. When you look through a trolls timeline， you rarely see a single focused target. Nope， trolls often spew in all directions like lawns sprinkler of vomit. Usually cloaked in their anonymity （although sometimes emboldened to keep it real），9 Twitters dedicated trolls yell at strangers all day like its their job. Even when I got into a perfectly civilized disagreement with a male public figure， a swarm of his supporters swiftly smelled a fight and descended to tell me to die.

Over the years Ive been monitoring Twitters troll problem， because Twitters troll problem hasnt improved. Ive watched other people—most frequently female—face harrowing10 threats to their safety. Ive followed the crap that Feminist Frequencys Anita Sarkeesian has endured for openly talking about sexism in the gaming world. I watched when tech editor Holly Brockwell had to temporarily disable her account “due to the number of creepy， abusive threats she got， mainly from men” after she wrote a story about not wanting to have children.

Ive also allowed my hopes to rise when it seemed like Twitter might be taking serious strides toward rectifying its abuse issues and removing the worst offenders，11 and when public officials have recognized that threatening someone online is still known， in legal circles as， threatening someone.

But this has been a year to drain12 a persons optimism. Lately actress Leslie Jones went through such an outrageously ugly torrent of disgusting racist abuse that she briefly left Twitter—right at the height of an otherwise peak moment in her career. At least she got to turn her whole fiasco—which included a hacking of her site—into an Emmy joke， telling the representatives from Ernst & Young，13 “Since youre good at keeping things safe， I got a job for you： My Twitter account. Put that in the vault， please.”

Like others， including Arthur Chu， whos written eloquently of his Twitter ambivalence，14 Ive taken my share of mental health breaks. Last year I went on a social-media fast that helped me gain balance and serenity in my online life.15 And last month I went on a weeklong vacation and barely looked online at all the whole time.

But this time when I returned， I didnt feel as eager to see the familiar faces who enlighten and entertain. I just dreaded the inevitable nastiness. I didnt have to wait long to get it. And when another female writer posted that if Twitter didnt take more dramatic action to curtail16 abuse， she doubted that shed still be active on it a year from now. I thought： What am I waiting for？

Then last week， I woke up one morning to some not especially egregious17 but definitely hostile overnight reactions to something Id written and decided Id had enough. Always late to the quitting Twitter trend， thats me.

I am strict in my online curation18 and I am grateful for the filter option that does somewhat effectively screen out what Twitter calls “l(fā)ower-quality content.” Im not interested in getting in fights with the haters， and I dont care to follow people who do. I block robustly. But the ugliness of this year， the pure， gloves-off19 hatred on constant display—and not just on Twitter—is not healthy for anybody to voluntarily put up with unchecked.

In July， author Jessica Valenti announced on Twitter，“This morning I woke up to a death threat directed at my five-year-old daughter. That this is part of my work life is unacceptable… Law enforcement needs to get their shit together on online threats.” She continued： “In the meantime， Im taking a break from social media. I dont know how long. I just know that I cant live like this. Its too much.”

I am genuinely concerned about what happens when reasonably normal， non-screaming people abandon a conversation. I think a lot about the potential consequences of social media being overrun with bullies. After having spent 20 years in online communities， I also understand that keeping the trolls at bay20 is a hard job and that this one ladys absence isnt a movement. But Ive spent my adult life trying， in my own small way， to be more signal than noise. And being persistently subjected to threats and abuse and just plain idiot drool21 is not what one would call a “user-friendly” experience， nor is it， by the way， what the founding fathers had in mind with the freedom of speech thing.

I wouldnt keep going to a restaurant that often has great food but also regularly serves up plates of garbage. And when a business fails its customers， the customers leave.

很難說誰贏了——噴子還是我?，F(xiàn)在判斷還為時(shí)尚早。我只知道我已經(jīng)停止使用推特一周了，而且我感覺并沒有什么不適應(yīng)的。

我愛社交媒體。我恨社交媒體。你也是這樣嗎？多年來，我一直在不斷調(diào)整與它的關(guān)系，努力避免飽和的蔓延。我既不用色拉布也不用領(lǐng)英。你沒法把我拖進(jìn)評(píng)論區(qū)。

然后就是推特了。

如果你在家辦公，那么推特就是絕佳的閑聊工具。多年來，我一直靠這樣的幻覺混日子：我所關(guān)注的那些聰明、機(jī)智、全情投入的人從某種程度上來說是我的同事、朋友，我每天都可以與他們就政治、電視與健康進(jìn)行對話。

我甚至很幸運(yùn)能夠通過推特認(rèn)識(shí)了幾個(gè)線下的朋友和工作上的聯(lián)系人。事實(shí)上，其中一個(gè)今晚要和我一起去喝啤酒。如果你使用推特是因?yàn)槟阆矚g聰明且可以逗你大笑的人，你不會(huì)失望的。而且它是免費(fèi)的！唯一的代價(jià)就是會(huì)被最差勁的人渣持續(xù)不斷地“噴”。

我從2008年春天開始用推特。我不記得究竟過了多久，我第一次被稱作丑陋的婊子，但我記得是過了一段時(shí)間才出現(xiàn)這種情況的。當(dāng)然，時(shí)不時(shí)我的消息中會(huì)有讓人不悅的評(píng)論，或者某位固執(zhí)己見的、還用著推特默認(rèn)的蛋蛋頭像的用戶會(huì)不請自來地向我發(fā)送言辭激烈的回復(fù)。但是我從未認(rèn)真重新考慮過是否應(yīng)該停用推特，直到幾年后，我為某雜志寫了一篇文章，在談及一位著名的憎惡女性的媒體人時(shí)給出了一些負(fù)面的評(píng)價(jià)。

不一會(huì)兒，我就收到了死亡威脅——比如，我會(huì)去你家殺了你。當(dāng)這些回復(fù)開始涌入時(shí)，我正置身于音樂會(huì)上的一大群人之中，我記得自己被一種妄想癥患者般的恐懼感所淹沒。突然間，我感覺人群中的任何一個(gè)都可能是想襲擊我的人。

抓緊補(bǔ)充一句，這不僅僅是針對我。如果你去看看某個(gè)噴子的時(shí)間軸，你很少看到噴子只盯著一個(gè)目標(biāo)噴。

不，噴子經(jīng)常到處亂噴，就像草坪的灑水噴頭一樣。推特上那些“兢兢業(yè)業(yè)”的噴子通常以匿名的方式隱藏起來（雖然有時(shí)候也有膽子大的噴子以真實(shí)身份示人），整天對著陌生人大喊大叫，仿佛這是他們的工作。甚至當(dāng)我與一名男性公眾人物以十分文明的方式發(fā)生爭論時(shí)，他的一群支持者迅速嗅到了一場爭斗，然后跑到我這兒讓我去死。

多年以來我一直在關(guān)注推特的噴子問題，因?yàn)檫@一問題一直都沒有得到改善。我見到其他人——最常見的是女性——遭受了危及自身安全的恐怖威脅。我看到視頻播客“女權(quán)頻率”的安妮塔·薩克依茜安因公開談?wù)撚螒蚴澜缰械男詣e歧視而被“噴”。我見到科技編輯霍莉·布羅克韋爾在寫了一篇關(guān)于不想要孩子的文章之后，“由于遭到大量（主要來自男性的）可怕的辱罵與威脅”不得不暫時(shí)停用她的賬戶。

當(dāng)推特似乎在認(rèn)真解決其網(wǎng)絡(luò)暴力問題并將最惡劣的噴子封號(hào)時(shí)，當(dāng)公共官員已經(jīng)認(rèn)識(shí)到在網(wǎng)上威脅他人被法律界認(rèn)定為等同于威脅他人時(shí)，我還懷有希望。

但這一年將人的樂觀情緒消磨殆盡。最近，女演員萊斯莉·瓊斯在遭受了極其丑惡的種族主義辱罵后決定暫時(shí)離開推特——就在她職業(yè)生涯的另一個(gè)高峰時(shí)刻。至少她把她的慘敗——包括她的網(wǎng)站被黑了——編成了一個(gè)艾美獎(jiǎng)笑話，告訴安永的代表：“因?yàn)槟銈兩瞄L保管東西，所以我有個(gè)差事給你：保管好我的推特賬戶。請把它放到金庫里。”

像其他人一樣（包括阿瑟·朱，他雄辯地描寫了他對推特的矛盾心理），我已經(jīng)為了自己的精神健康時(shí)不時(shí)給自己放假了。去年我停用了社交媒體，這幫助我獲得了網(wǎng)絡(luò)生活的平衡與寧靜。上個(gè)月，我休了一周的假，并且在此期間幾乎沒有上網(wǎng)看過一眼。

但是這次我回歸推特時(shí)，我并沒有十分渴望見到那些曾予我啟迪、讓我愉快的熟悉面孔。我只是害怕不可避免的不快。不用等多久我就會(huì)遭遇不快。當(dāng)另一位女作家發(fā)帖表示如果推特沒有采取更大的行動(dòng)來遏制網(wǎng)絡(luò)暴力，她不認(rèn)為一年后自己仍會(huì)是活躍用戶。我想：我還在等什么呢？

于是在上周，一天早上我醒來的時(shí)候讀到了一些頭天晚上網(wǎng)友對我寫的東西并不算特別惡毒但絕對充滿敵意的回復(fù)，我決定我已經(jīng)受夠了?？偸呛芡聿偶尤虢涞敉铺氐某绷?，這就是我。

我對自己網(wǎng)上的內(nèi)容管理很嚴(yán)格，我很感激過濾選項(xiàng)可以在一定程度上有效地過濾掉推特所謂的“低質(zhì)量內(nèi)容”。我沒有興趣與噴子對噴，我也不愿關(guān)注那些會(huì)和噴子對噴的人。我經(jīng)常堅(jiān)決地屏蔽。但是，今年的丑陋，那些純粹的、毫不留情的憎恨不斷上演——而且不僅僅是在推特上——這對于任何放任不管、自愿忍受這些的人而言都是不健康的。

7月時(shí)，作家杰茜卡·瓦倫蒂在推特上宣布：“今天早上，我醒來時(shí)發(fā)現(xiàn)了一條針對我5歲女兒的死亡威脅。我無法接受這是我工作生活的一部分……執(zhí)法部門需要加強(qiáng)對網(wǎng)絡(luò)威脅的治理?！彼^續(xù)道：“與此同時(shí)，我正在停止使用社交媒體。我不知道會(huì)持續(xù)多久。我只知道我不能像這樣生活。如此過分我不能忍受?！?/p>

我真的擔(dān)憂當(dāng)頭腦基本正常、不會(huì)大喊大叫的人們放棄對話時(shí)會(huì)發(fā)生什么。我對社交媒體被惡霸侵占的潛在后果思考了很多。在網(wǎng)絡(luò)社區(qū)度過了20年之后，我也明白遏制噴子是一件難事，而且一位女士的退場算不上一場運(yùn)動(dòng)。但是，我通過自己的成年生活試圖以自己微不足道的方式發(fā)出信號(hào)而非噪聲。然而持續(xù)暴露在威脅、辱罵以及愚蠢至極的胡說八道之中絕不是人們所說的“用戶友好”的體驗(yàn)，也不是，順便說一句，開國元?jiǎng)桩?dāng)年所說的言論自由。

我不會(huì)繼續(xù)光顧一家雖然經(jīng)常提供美食，但也不斷把垃圾端上餐桌的餐廳。當(dāng)企業(yè)讓顧客失望，顧客就會(huì)離開。

1. troll： 網(wǎng)絡(luò)噴子。

2. saturation： 飽和（狀態(tài)）。

3. Snapchat： 色拉布，是由斯坦福大學(xué)兩位學(xué)生開發(fā)的一款“閱后即焚”照片分享應(yīng)用；LinkedIn： 領(lǐng)英，一個(gè)知名的職場社交平臺(tái)。

4. water cooler： 飲水機(jī)，多用來指辦公場所供休息閑聊的地方。

5. dregs：（常用復(fù)數(shù)）渣滓。

6. unsolicited： 主動(dòng)提供的，未經(jīng)請求的；opinionated： 固執(zhí)己見的，武斷的；avatar： （因特網(wǎng)上聊天者的）化身圖標(biāo)，虛擬頭像。

7. misogynist： 憎惡女性的人。

8. paranoid： 偏執(zhí)狂，妄想癥患者。

9. cloak： 遮掩，隱匿；anonymity：匿名；embolden： 使有膽量。

10. harrowing： 讓人恐懼的，令人痛苦的。

11. stride： 大步，闊步；rectify： 糾正，改正。

12. drain： 消耗，耗盡。

13. Emmy： 艾美獎(jiǎng)，萊斯莉·瓊斯曾獲艾美獎(jiǎng)喜劇類最佳女配角提名；Ernst & Young： 安永會(huì)計(jì)師事務(wù)所，是一個(gè)總部位于英國倫敦的跨國性專業(yè)服務(wù)公司，為四大會(huì)計(jì)師事務(wù)所之一。

14. eloquently： 雄辯地；ambivalence：矛盾心理。

15. fast： 禁食；serenity： 寧靜。

16. curtail： 減少，削減。

17. egregious： 極壞的，極其惡劣的。

18. curation： 綜合管理。

19. gloves-off：（脫掉手套）作好戰(zhàn)斗準(zhǔn)備。

20. keep at bay： 使（嚴(yán)重、危險(xiǎn)或令人不快的）某事物無法接近。

21. drool： 胡說。