Dhanya also questioned the silence on the actor’s behalf on the issue.
Dhanya Rajendran, a senior journalist was mentioned around 30,000 times on Twitter, and no, it is not something to be happy about. She tweeted something negative about Sura, and compared it with Jab Harry Met Sejal starring Shah Rukh Khan. She wrote, ” I had watched Vijay’s Sura till interval and walked out. #WhenHarryMet Sejal has made break that record. Could not sit till interval.”
To this, Vijay’s fans took to Twitter and not only trolled her, but also sent her abusive messages.
It has been more than 48 hours since that first tweet was posted on August 4. But the ‘outrage’ among Vijay followers has not subsided. On Sunday, a hashtag (#PublicityBeepDhanya) was created and used in more than 30,000 tweets, becoming a trend on Twitter for some time. While support poured in for Dhanya, so did the offensive, derogatory tweets.
However, this wasn’t just a trend that got picked up, it was organised, said Dhanya. She also tweeted screenshots of the warning she received at 5:40 pm on Sunday, 20 minutes before the hashtag was created and started gaining traffic.
““Twitter India blacklisted the hashtag immediately after I pointed out to them that they can’t talk about security for women when there is a hashtag that is an abuse trend. My only problem is I have access to Twitter people, so I could do it. What about so many others who don’t?” said Dhanya to Indianexpress.com.
Is this kind of trolling unorganised? Definitely, not. Tweet was sent before 6 pm asking me to wait. And they started the hashtag at 6 pm pic.twitter.com/lwpYYQmyRM
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) August 7, 2017
And then at 6.05 pm, the same handle tweets the hashtag. An organised activity pic.twitter.com/5YNI0EuHai
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) August 7, 2017
A lot of these belittling tweets seemed to be around the fact that Dhanya has tweeted negative remarks about Vijay’s acting multiple times.
Now all those screenshots that FBI and KGB have collected. In 2011, I was pulling the leg of a friend on Twitter. I manually RTed his tweet pic.twitter.com/gNzQqfvRYX
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) August 7, 2017
Dhanya responded to this as well.
So yes, I Rted a joke on Twitter, I said I don’t like an actor’s movies. Tweets from 2011, 2013 and 2017- Not like I tweet daily about Vijay
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) August 7, 2017
Nevertheless, the torrent of abusive comments did not diminish. “There was one guy who was the creepiest who tweeted my picture saying it is evident from my face that I have slept around a lot. I had put out a tweet asking people to report the tweet. I am sure atleast 200 people would have reported it but the guy is still on Twitter because Twitter does not understand Tamil,” she said.
— Chinmayi Sripaada (@Chinmayi) August 7, 2017
Dhanya also questioned the silence on the actor’s behalf on the issue. “A lot of people have reached to Vijay’s office. Why hasn’t he reacted? ,” she asked. She further added that fans will not behave in such manner if they know that the actor will not support their actions.
“I am only a journalist. Someone like Chinmayi, she has been trolled so much. She has taken it up several times as well. But why doesn’t the industry have a voice? People like Vishal have left Twitter due to trolling. Where is the remedial measure here?” she questioned.
