Image: Instagram/@piawurtzbach
After joining the new social media platform Threads, Pia Wurtzbach disclosed her “worst experience” with its rival, Twitter, wherein she received hate and threats in 2020 for being against the then Anti-Terrorism bill.
The beauty queen, who pushed to junk the controversial bill by using a Twitter hashtag, spoke about her experience via her Threads page on Thursday, July 6.
“Share your worst Twitter experience. I’ll go first—getting hate tweets literally every 30 seconds in 2020 when I voiced out my opinion on the Anti-Terror Bill,” she said. “I remember not even shading the [government] or the president, I just tweeted a hashtag and got so much hate.”
Wurtzbach recalled that aside from hate comments, she also received threats which made her delete the application for a time.
“One of the worst was ‘sasaksakan ko ng tubo p*ke mo, bobo ka walang alam’ (I’ll shove a pipe on your sexual organ. You are stupid and you know nothing). I had to uninstall the [application] for a week to avoid checking the mentions,” she stated.
Despite massive opposition, former President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Anti-Terrorism bill into law in July 2020. The law seeks to strengthen the Human Security Act of 2007 and criminalizes incitement of terrorism “by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners or other representations.”
In a succeeding post, Wurtzbach also revealed having dealt with a social media user who regularly “stalked and ridiculed” the beauty queen for years.
“This person was reading into every single post, comment, video I was doing on every platform, including all my family [and] close friends. They would also message the endorsements [and] brands I work with to destroy me with made up narratives,” she recounted.
“I reported many MANY times with clear evidence but Twitter did nothing,” she continued. “It was clearly slander [and] abusive behavior. I had to sit there [and] take it for years.”
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Netizens felt sorry for Wurtzbach for her sad experience, and expressed hope that Threads would be a safer platform for social media users.
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Image: Threads/@piawurtzbach
Social media giant Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, launched Threads on July 5 (July 6 in the Philippines). Threads’ arrival comes after Zuckerberg and Twitter owner Elon Musk traded barbs for months. /ra