It seems clear that the police need training in terms of what constitutes cyber-harassment, what is acceptable conduct and what is not.
Compare how Posie is being treated with the following experience:
3 months of prolonged and sustained cyber-harassment with over 50 abusive posts written every single day. Posts which doxed my children , my ex and my husband and published private details. Posts which included explicit sexual insults and threats designed to sexually humiliate and degrade. Posts which in the context of hating on me, informed people of my DH's movements and made repeated threats to turn up here. Malicious phonecalls. One post before Christmas published photographs demonstrated that the suspect was less than 3 minutes walk away from my house and said that we would be getting a nasty surprise soon.
In addition scores of accounts using my photograph (wearing Posie's t-shirt) were set up on porn sharing websites and dating websites. Every day I receive dozens explicit emails from men wanting to meet but I can't get into these sites to remove the account or change the password. Myself and DH had hundred of pounds worth of sex toys ordered using our names and addresses and including an attempt to set up a business account with an industrial supplier. The nature of the goods ordered indicated the person had the same kinds of obsessions as the person writing the abusive blog, who said "you need porn and dildos in your life".
When the police rang me for an update, the first question they asked was "have you been talking about transgender issues on your Twitter account"?! I still don't know if charges are going to be laid and I was told that it does not constitute harassment. Even though the activity began on Twitter with the person tweeting me over 117 times a day.
Sorry to derail. But honestly the inconsistency of it all makes my blood boil. Posie's case also makes it much harder for people in my situation.
Susie Green is a public figure who has put her private actions and the private medical treatment of her child in the public eye in order to politicise it. She is the one who allowed cameras into her family life to publicise her daughter. She is the one who put personal, intimate details about the appearance of her child's sex organs into the public domain on a BBC documentary, even laughing about the affect puberty blockers had upon them. If you court public opinion, make yourself into a public figure and crucially receive public money and use your child's experience to drive public policy, then you should expect criticism.
Posie has the same right as Susie Green to direct public policy, which includes highlighting the problematic nature of Susie Green's decisions for her child.
God help us all if criticising the public life choices of a public figure in receipt of public money now constitutes harassment.