300,000 men join in with #MeToo sexual assault hashtag

Over 30 per cent of the people who tweeted about the #MeToo campaign were men, as the campaign spread across social media.

The hashtag surfaced over the weekend and sparked an international conversation about sexual harassment and abuse, according to analysis by data scientists at PCRO Studio.

It all began when actress Alyssa Milano asked her followers to speak up about sexual abuse in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations. 

She said women should simply tweet #MeToo if they had been sexually harassed and assaulted.

Ms Milano wrote: "If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet."

A million people used the hashtag

In the past seven days, a million people have tweeted using the hashtag.

3.6bn people were reached, which means 3.6bn people clicked on or interacted with tweets including the hashtag, and over 5bn people saw the tweets.

The US lead the way in the campaign

Which is unsurprising given the campaign began there, and the UK followed behind in second place.

Most people retweeted to show support

Most of the #MeToo traffic has come from retweets; people signal-boosting the stories of others.

This hugely pushed the campaign as the tweets were circulated around the website.

Hourly MeToo hashtags accelerated from 18 mentions an hour at 6am on 15th October to 83.5k mentions an hour by 10pm on 15th October. ​

Biggest influencers

The biggest influencers on the campaign were those whose tweets achieved the most retweets.

Alyssa Milano's original call to arms managed over 23,000 retweets, which means hundreds of thousands of people were reached by her tweet.

Actress and disability campaigner Marlee Matlin was retweeted 4,000 times when she alleged she was sexually abused when she was underage.

 Lady Gaga spoke out, and over 7,000 people retweeted her.

 Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles was one of the more prominent men to use the hashtag.

 Oscar winner Viola Davis also replied to the original call-out, tweeting #MeToo:

 Gender split by country

India was the only country in which more men tweeted #MeToo than women. 63.2pc of the tweets containing the hashtag were by men, while 36.8pc were by women.

In the UK, 29pc of the tweets were by men, while 71pc were by women, and in the US, 30.5pc of the tweets were by men, while 69.5pc were by women.