Social media outcry can enact real change
On Sept. 2, TIME Magazine tweeted, “Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to be released from jail Friday.” A few days later when Turner was registered as a sex offender, media outlets followed TIME’s precedent for a headline. BuzzFeed News tweeted, “Ex-Stanford swimmer Brock Turner registers as sex offender.” The Associated Press followed suit with a tweet reading “Ex-Stanford swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting unconscious woman registers as sex offender in Ohio.” However, it wasn’t just the headlines about Turner that were uniform; The responses to these headlines was rather uniform as well. Namely, there was one very common correction.
Some politely tweeted the various Twitter accounts questions like “Do you mean rapist?” Others went for more blatant snark with tweets like “It’s r-a-p-i-s-t not s-w-i-m-m-e-r ” and “I think you misspelled criminal.” But perhaps my favorite tweet came from Anup Kaphle: “Hey TIME, was he in jail for swimming?”
This backlash against labeling Brock Turner a swimmer, however, is only the latest Twitter outrage related to the case. In fact, Turner’s narrative is inextricably linked to social media. The victim of his brutal sexual assault wrote a powerful letter that went viral. In fact, the letter gained so much attention on social media sites that it was eventually read aloud in the U.S. House of Representatives.
When Turner was sentenced to a mere six months for his violent crime, a host of online petitions cropped up. The petitions ranged from asking for a longer sentence to demanding the removal of the judge who sentenced Turner, Judge Aaron Persky. So, when the news broke that Turner would serve only three months of his six-month sentence, it was hardly surprising that people quickly took to social media expressing outrage over Turner’s lenient treatment both by the media and by the criminal justice system.
While Turner’s case is undoubtedly a glaring reminder of injustice, it is also a reminder of the difference many voices can make. Social media activism often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. The articles I share probably don’t make a difference most of the time and definitely shouldn’t be a substitute for organizing for change in real life. However, in the case of the #StanfordRapist, social media undoubtedly held people accountable when other systems failed.
More than one million people signed a Change.org petition to remove Persky from the bench. At the end of August, CNN reported, “At his own request, the California judge facing a recall effort for his handling of a sexual assault case involving a Stanford student will no longer hear criminal cases.” There is an important debate about whether recalling Persky is an ethical move considering the judicial branch is meant to be independent from political pressure. However, it is clear that the recall movement is the result of the criminal justice system’s failure to adequately address sexual assault and its own endemic racism and classism.
Furthermore, the viral attention Turner received resulted in legislative action in California. Just days before Turner’s early release, the California legislature passed a bill that closed loopholes in current sexual assault statutes and mandated harsher sentencing for perpetrators in cases like Turner’s. In an interview with The New York Times, Assemblyman Bill Dodd attributed the bill’s success to “the lax sentence in the Brock Turner case that drew international scorn.” Again, there is room for meaningful debate. Mandatory minimums and harsher sentencing may not solve the problem of rape on college campuses. However, the outrage on social media and the mobilization to remedy this injustice led to concrete efforts to fix a system that too often ignores sexual assault.
Facebook shares, online petitions and retweets are not sufficient enough to end rape culture. They won’t prevent every judge from granting leniency to defendants based on their race or socioeconomic status. But last week, Twitter users proved they’re going to stay up-to-date with Turner’s story and, while doing so, demand accountability from legislatures, judges and journalists.
Lena Melillo is a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law and gender studies. Her column, “’Pop Politics,” runs every Thursday.