To think hate speach against mums on Instagram / YouTube should be make a crime

[Bekindnotabully]

With social media it's allowed amazing ways to communicate with people. But it's also allowed trolling and harrasment to happen at unprecedented scale.

Sites like tattle life and increasing Mumsnet allow people to troll women that make their living out of social media and the current rules in place don't allow the police to identify and bring to justice the trolls. You can pretty much say what you like including bullying someone over their appearance and their parenting with zero repreciousons. It's not on and needs to change.

I could go on but aibu to think these rules need to change? People are taking their own lives and the government did not approve my petition to afford people on social media greater human rights protection.

I honestly don’t know what you mean. Can you post some examples?

Between this and the petition around parents being exempt from redundancy, I actually despair.

On the styled by Susie threads here and tattle people are being nasty about her appearance and calling her a terrible parent. This is really affecting her mental health.

Only hate speech against mums? Or hate speech generally?

Daft idea.

@VodselForDinner

Between this and the petition around parents being exempt from redundancy, I actually despair.

You want the right to be able to troll mums??!!

Why just mums?

Ridiculous idea.

Why should a woman that’s had a child be afforded more rights than one who hasn’t? Absolutely ridiculous.

Good luck OP, but given that the government can't be arsed to make misogyny a hate crime I think you're on a hiding to nothing with trying to protect a subset of women.

I don't understand the relevance of 'mums' here? Hate speech is illegal but parents aren't a protected category - do you think they should be? Or are you saying that no one should say anything nasty to anyone online, which is a laudable but unrealistic aim.

#bEkiNd

Do you have any examples that when said face to face have met the threshold for a hate crime but have been said online without repercussions?

There already are laws about online hate speech so if a post meets the criteria, surely it's just a matter of reporting it? I'm not quite sure additional laws are required to make instamums a protected group.

Should only mums be exempt from trolling?

No one should be trolling anyBody
There are laws about malicious communications already
People that sell their lives and their children's lives in Insta could stop selling their lives for a quick buck if they are bothered

the answer would be for Susie to make her account private - problem solved

I know both site and most people are there to hold these "influencers" to account for not following rules 're ads or questioning whether their children can consent to being showboated around/whether they are causing MH problems to their followers.

Good try though!

@VodselForDinner

Between this and the petition around parents being exempt from redundancy, I actually despair.

There's actually a petition supporting that?

If you set yourself up as some kind of expert in an utterly trivial and pointless field you can expect to be criticised.

I do think its harsh, but if you put yourself in the public eye then you are opening yourself to criticism.
I would never want to be famous - have every inch of my life scrutinised, torn apart and judged. I can't imagine what that would do to a person's mental health. But barring freak circumstances outside of my control, not attaining fame is a choice I can make. People judge others all the time, you're never going to stop it and banning discussions across the board is never going to work, nor is it right.

Trolling and harassment are already crimes - though I wouldn't be averse to seeing harsher consequences. And several forums (MN for ome example) will delete threads or posts that become too personal or nasty.
I do think the media need to take more responsibility, but that's been an ongoing argument for decades and I suspect it will be for decades more.

Why just mums? And specifically what sort of comments do you mean? I don’t know the threads you mean or even the person (susie?) you’re talking about.

It's not obligatory to use social media to make a living.

People who put there whole lives on social media with no privacy filters (e.g., "influencers") should be savvy enough to know that not everyone is going to like what they're posting and that some people are going to be vocal about saying so. They have access to the block and delete buttons and they have the facility to report comments to the social media platform.

There has to be a balance between stopping hate speech and allowing freedom of expression. While it's not polite for someone to say "I think you're a shit parent", they do have the freedom to say it and it wouldn't be illegal. "I think you're a shit parent and I know where you live, I'm going to burn your house down" is a whole other ball game and comments like that can be reported to the police just as they would be if they were said face to face.

@Hobnobswantshernameback

No one should be trolling anyBody There are laws about malicious communications already People that sell their lives and their children's lives in Insta could stop selling their lives for a quick buck if they are bothered

Exactly.

I agree that it's horrible people feel the need to do this, but similarly surely if it's affecting someone's mental health they need to make decisions about whether what they are doing is still a good choice for them, as many people in 'normal' jobs do. Of course its sad that others make people feel that low, but if you're making money from putting your life and children out there, why should there be a law to stop people have opinions? Hate speech is already a crime if it crosses that line. Again, not condoning people who post on sites like that, it's disgusting, but it's also why should they be protected against anyone else? Trolling against anyone should be better managed.

Misogyny should be a hate crime.

I don't get why people should be kinder to mums than women who are child free.

I don't actually have a lot of sympathy for insta parents who exploit their kids for likes.

Tattle is vile though. It absolutely isn't just holding people to account. People on there admit to hate following and post very unnecessarily unpleasant shit about people's looks and their kids.