Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Travis M. Andrews.
Frohman’s poem appeared word-by-word over short black-and-white video and static clips of women, including filmmakers Ava DuVernay and Julie Dash, documentarian Jennifer Brea and the “Insecure” director and actress Issa Rae. Twitter had previously used the poem in 2017 for its digital-only #SheInspiresMe campaign featuring actresses Alicia Silverstone and Mena Suvari.
The commercial ended with the hashtag #HereWeAre, which first appeared last December when Twitter CMO Leslie Berland announced that a group of female leaders would be appearing during’s Twitter’s event at the CES technology show.
Some praised the ad and the poem featured in it, taking to Twitter to call it “fierce," “powerful” and “stunning.”
But others found Twitter’s message of female empowerment – and its nod to the #MeToo movement – hypocritical. Many accuse Twitter of being slow to police the rampant harassment of women on its platform.
Last year, thousands of women promised to boycott Twitter after it temporarily suspended actress Rose McGowan — one of the loudest voices of the #MeToo movement who accused Weinstein of raping her — for tweeting “a private phone number.”
For some, the commercial represented a platform that does not actually exist. One where women and people of color feel they can safely express themselves without finding hate speech in their mentions.
Author Luvvie Ajayi praised the ad’s contents but noted that Twitter still has work left to do.
This #HereWeAre Twitter commercial just gave me chills. That was stunning.
— Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) March 5, 2018
Now. Twitter, we shall await your continued work to make this platform safer for women who look like those in that commercial.
Author Jessica Valenti and Ted Talks social media editor Ella Dawson echoed Ajayi.
#HereWeAre, still watching as Twitter does little to nothing about the rampant misogyny & racism that infects this space https://t.co/hJmywf3H2H
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) March 5, 2018
How about you spend the money you used on this ad to hire moderators to kick accounts that terrorize women off your platform?
— ella dawson (@brosandprose) March 5, 2018
How about you hire more engineers who aren’t men to build your platform so that you don’t have giant blind spots putting users at risk? #HereWeAre https://t.co/RBDtfYkKQY