Founder Kris Wells wanted to "create a mirror to hold up against society". Source: news.com.au
Nohomophobes.com has found the word "faggot" used more than 2.5 million times since July. Source: news.com.au
THIS is a shocking fact: the word �faggot' has been used more than 2.5 million times on Twitter since July.
Similar terms ? "so gay" (896k), "no homo" (818k) and "dyke" (346k) ? have been tracked by nohomophobes.com, a new wesbite that "holds a mirror up to society".
The site, an initiative of Canada's Alberta University, tracks real tweets from real users in real time.
In the first nine hours of its launch the site received 30,000 unique hits; 19,000 from Canada and nearly 500 from Australia. Yesterday alone there were more than 23,000 Tweets containing the word "faggot".
The goal is to reveal the extent of society's "casual homophobia". It might be a thoughtless retort or a locker-room joke, but nohomophobes.com, says stereotypical slurs can hurt people.
"We wanted to do something to show the magnitude of this language," campaign founder Kris Wells told news.com.au
"People say ?I didn't mean anything by it' and have become so desensitised to this language that we wanted to call attention to it.
"We see all across the world athletes tweeting and casual language thrown around the boardroom, and it's all designed to demean and perpetuate stereotypes against the Lesbian Gay Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community."
Back to that alarming stat: there have been 2.5 million uses of the word faggot since July; it's a conservative estimate that doesn't include the oft-used "fag", because that's a synonym for cigarette in the UK.
Dr Wells says society has evolved to the point where saying "faggot" should be no longer acceptable in person or online.
"We're quick to address racist language, and we're getting better at addressing sexist language - but people say this (homophobia) is the last form of acceptable discrimination in our society," he said.
"We want to create a social mirror to reflect back the pervasive and damaging use of homophobia in our society."
Stephanie Rice found out the hard way when she was forced to give a tearful apology for Tweeting: "Suck on that faggots!" when the Wallabies beat South Africa in 2010.
Justin Koonin, the convenor of NSW's LGBT rights lobby says the old "sticks and stones" axiom doesn't apply to homophobia, encouraging people to stop and think about their behaviour.
"I think (nohomophobes.com) shows very clearly that people use homophobic language all the time," he told news.com.au
"Sometimes, quite often, people don't mean to cause offence and sometimes people don't take offence. But sometimes they do and you know never know.
"It's something you need to be mindful of because for many of us language does hurt."
It's an issue that goes beyond the hurtful words themselves. Sometimes it can be the cumulative effect that turns a slur into bullying, and bullying into discrimination.
"This kind of language leads to isolation bullying, beatings, violence, and in some tragic cases the suicide of our young people - and that really has to stop," said Dr Wells.
"By naming these words, we actually want to draw people's attention to their power. I'd say 2.5 million uses of the word ?faggot' is pretty clear evidence."
On Twitter: @christoforpaine
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