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Tweeting about rape

There has been an uproar recently after Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland tweeted about a Haitian woman’s rape. People were criticising the lack of fact checking and the bluntness of the reporting:

 “On my way to the hospital with a girl whose tongue was bitten off when she was raped."

"So, they're gonna have to do tongue reshaping, rather than reattachment, because the guy who bit it off swallowed it."

Other critics were debating whether the social network, which has a 140 character limit per tweet, was a suitable platform for something as complicated as rape. 

Should something as upsetting and horrific as rape be discussed on Twitter? Will it help raise awareness or does it trivialise the problem?

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