Thursday, September 27, 2012

New Website counts the number of Anti-Gay Words used on Twitter


An interesting site, called NoHomophobes.com, delivered some sad and troubling news. Since the beginning of the year, anti-gay terms have been strongly used on Twitter. In fact, HuffPo reports that "so gay" was used in 800,000 tweets since July and "faggot" was used 2.4 million times.
Dr. Kristopher Wells, the Associate Director of University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, said his team's agenda isn't to focus on individual tweets or Twitter users, but simply to demonstrate the "astonishing" frequency in which anti-gay language is used in everyday conversation. 
"We make it very clear on our site that we are not in any way implying that the people who have tweeted these words were all intending to be homophobic," Wells told HuffPost Gay Voices in an email statement. "Words have the power to hurt, but they also have the power to heal. We want people to think before they speak and to always be mindful of the power of the language they use."
If you want to check out the site, go here.

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.