The #MeToo Project

In October 2017, there happened the uprising of an unprecedented online movement on social media by people across the world who started publicly sharing their untold stories of being sexually harassed along with the hashtag #MeToo (or some variants of it). Those stories did not only strike the silence that had long hid the perpetrators, but also allowed victims to discharge some of their bottled-up grievances, and revealed many important information surrounding sexual harassment. In this project, we tap into social media (Twitter) to understand the dynamics of the #MeToo movement- who participated, what harassment did they go through, and what's the relationship between the victims and the perpetrators. We aim to advance the discussion on the potential role of online social media in breaking the silence of victims by factoring in the strengths and limitations of these platforms.