Bullying in individuals with cleft lip and palate: A Twitter analysis

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate bullying in individuals with cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) using Twitter analysis. Materials and methods: By using Twitter's advanced search feature, the four selected keywords; "bully", "bullying", "bullied" and "teased" were searched along with the terms "cleft lip and palate", "cleft lip" and "cleft palate", respectively. A total of 1010 tweets meeting the criteria were selected. The data were evaluated qualitatively using thematic analysis and the determination of the themes were based on this analysis. Results: Most of the tweets were posted by a layperson (80.8%), while most of the tweets were categorised in the theme "criticism of bullying" (36%). The tweets were distributed according to their uploader status as irrelevant individuals (60.6%), CLP subjects (26.9%), family of CLP subjects' (12.5%). Of the 1010 tweets evaluated, 707 were identified as negative, while 90 were identified as neutral and 213 were identified as positive. No significant differences were detected in retweet and like numbers between negative, neutral and positive comments (P > .05). Conclusions: Twitter is an important platform, in which the bullying victims with CLP and their families feel free to share their personal experiences of being bullied and how they feel about it, while the others are standing against bullying and promoting social support for these individuals.