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

Objectives: To evaluate the bullying in individuals with cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) by Twitter analysis. Materials and Methods: Twitter’s advanced search function was used while the term ‘cleft lip and palate’ was kept constant, and the selected keywords were ‘bully’, ‘bullying’, ‘bullied’ and ‘teased’. A total of 150 tweets that met the criteria were selected. The data were qualitatively evaluated by thematic analysis and the themes were determined based on this analysis. Results: Most of the tweets were posted by a layperson (76%). Also, nearly half of the tweets were categorized in the theme ‘personal experience of being bullied’ (43%). The tweets were distributed according to their uploader status as CLP subjects (46%), irrelevant individuals (28%), and parents of CLP subjects’ (26%). Of the 150 tweets evaluated, 74 were identified as negative, while 25 were identified as neutral and 51 as positive. No significant differences were detected in retweet and like numbers between negative, neutral, and positive comments (P > .05). Conclusions: This is the first study in the literature regarding the bullying suffered by individuals with CLP using Twitter data. Twitter is a social media platform for bullying victims with CLP to share their experiences and seek for social support.