When blocking, muting, engaging, and ignoring doesn’t work, perhaps the best remedy to being the recipient of online abuse is giving back.
No, not with hate – giving back to a worthy cause.
That’s what 34-year-old Muslim woman Susan Carland, who converted to Islam when she was 19, is doing after receiving a barrage of anti-Islamic insults on Twitter and other social networks.
“One day [after] reading the merry stream of toxicity directed towards me, I wondered what the most edifyingly Islamic response I could give would be,” she says. That response? Donating $1 to UNICEF for every hate-filled tweet she received. Three weeks ago, she had already donated over $1000.
I donate $1 to @UNICEF for each hate-filled tweet I get from trolls. Nearly at $1000 in donations. The needy children thank you, haters!
— Susan Carland (@SusanCarland) October 21, 2015
Unsurprisingly, this tweet generated further hate-filled messages, which is great terrible we don’t know. Her action has inspired others to join the stream of donations.
@SusanCarland I’ll throw in $100 for @UNICEF and one nice tweet: you’re awesome.
— Catherine Gleeson (@CathGleeson) November 12, 2015
@SusanCarland @UNICEF I’ll match your donations to UNICEF (to $2,000). Please let me know the final amount.
— kevin armstrong (@kw8xi8) November 13, 2015
“By refusing to let the hate of others mould me, I am more secure and relaxed in my own identity than ever,” says Carland about her philanthropic reaction to bigotry.
Haters gonna hate. Victims gonna donate. Kids in need gonna celebrate.
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