The singer’s brave statement about her rape shows how powerfully immediate social media can be – but these platforms can also distort the personal narrative of female stars
Duffy’s statement regarding her horrific sexual assault was striking not only for its bravery, but for being so direct. This was a radically unfiltered statement issued not via a spokesperson or PR company, but made, as is now becoming standard in popular culture, via social media.
The utopian ideal of social media platforms trumpeted by CEOs such as Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is that they allow the silent to have a voice, and theoretically this is true. Accompanied by an image she will have chosen herself, Duffy was able to speak plainly of the journey through trauma to self-definition, without her words being filleted by journalists (though they inevitably were in news reports, including by me in these pages).