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Reporting Assault Allegations Online

By Kirah Tianga 

Spectrum staff

“He told me he wanted to have sex, but I expressed my uneasiness because I was worried his mom would come down. He told me it was fine, and he pulled me onto the floor and started pushing my dress up.”

“When I was in middle school, I sat next to a boy in class who would repeatedly touch me and grab my butt almost every day of that year.”

“He came over to my house for the first time and we watched a movie. A couple minutes in, he put his hands down my pants with no warning. I awkwardly pulled his hand out and looked at him and he started kissing me more.”

Columbia High School (Credit: Kirah Tianga)

Those are samples of what’s posted on @mapso.survivors.voices, an Instagram page designed to highlight allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the South Orange-Maplewood School District and townships, and to let those who alleged they’ve assaulted to anonymously tell their stories.

“Over the course of working on the account we learned about the extent to which sexual assault is swept under the rug in our community,” the account’s owners wrote in a direct message to The Spectrum. “The goal for the account is to bring awareness to rape culture in our town, as well as provide a platform for people to come forward about their experiences safely and anonymously.”

Launched on July 2, the account had gained more than 400 followers by late July. @mapso.survivors.voices follows a similar account created on June 28. Its founder, a local girl female who will be a high school senior in the fall and arrived in the district when she was in middle school, alleges that she was sexually assaulted. She named the perpetrator, a boy, in her Instagram post, writing that he held her against a wall, ran his hands down her body, and refused to listen to her requests to stop.

Screenshot of @mapso.survivors.voices account

Screenshot of @mapso.survivors.voices Google Form

“I hadn’t told my story to many friends until four to five years after it had happened,” she said. “And, so, I was getting used to, like, actually having a story,” She decided to come out with her story because other girls also have alleged that the same perpetrator also assaulted them.

“I had known that a lot of people had been affected by [him] in a negative way,” the Columbia High School student said, “So, that’s when I was, like, ‘Alright.’

Of @mapso.survivors.voices, she said, “I hope they accomplish being able to create some sort of support for these people after they tell their stories — because that’s the big thing that a lot of these kids lack.”

@mapso.survivors.voices works by providing a Google Form for detailing an allegation. To avoid being sued for defamation, slander, and such, no names of perpetrators can be listed. That also follows Instagram’s policies. The account’s owners state in their Community Guidelines, “We remove content that contains credible threats or hate speech, content that targets private individuals to degrade or shame them, personal information meant to blackmail or harass someone, and repeated unwanted messages.”

Part of @mapso.survivors.voices’ goal is to let people know where they can get support. They link to organizations such as RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) and VictimConnect.

“We do acknowledge that we do not try or claim to act in the space of professionals as we agree that it is both not our place and could do more harm than good, which is why we link to resources,” the account’s owners, in a direct message, wrote to The Spectrum.

South Orange-Maplewood school officials are aware of the account  and that some of the alleged encounters happened on school property. Anide Eustache, the district’s media relations manager, said she could not comment.

She referred to The Spectrum to the district’s website: “We are committed to providing a safe space for our students and in accordance with state law and district policy we reached out to the social media site and are investigating the post to the best of our ability. We encourage our students/families to come forward, use other school resources, such as counselors or trusted staff, if needed, or submit any allegations … ”

Although only some allegations happened on district property, many involved schoolmates who are not at schools when the assault took place..

To end their story, one anonymous writer states, “You DON’T get to sexually assault one woman and move onto the next. I am cutting off your power.”