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.

Influencers are selling stuff, of course there will be criticism some valid, some not valid but that's what happens when you sell.

I totally agree that there should be protected characteristics and it should be illegal for anyone to attack, troll or criticise someone for a protected characteristic, refuse them service or discriminate against them.

I don’t agree that mums or social media users should be a protected group. And I don’t agree that parenting skills or appearance (excluding race) should be protected characteristics. I also don’t think we need special laws to cover online bullying. Hate speech is hate speech, regardless of where it happens. Surely the same laws would cover online and offline hate speech? If it’s hate speech then regardless of where it happens, you just report it.

No I do not think mum on Instagram etc. should be a protected species and not I also do think being an 'influencer' is a career

Not read all the replies (sorry) but I get what you mean even if it was badly worded which is probably why the voting is skewed to YABU!
It's not hate speech, but it is arseholes with anonymity thinking they can say what they like behind a screen.
There's people on the receiving end.
Lots of people make a living on social media now, is a legitimate job even if some don't want to think so and/or stuck in the past.
I don't "get" people hate following - profess to hate everything someone does/puull them down but still avidly follow them and know what they're up to/latest grid posts!

There is absolutely no opportunity for critical discussion on instagram with these influencers. Their accounts are mostly aimed at women, influencing them to buy a number of things from clothes, holidays, home ware etc.

You cannot raise the point that the influencer didn’t pay for the item so how do you really know if it’s good value or not. If you do you would be saturated by their ‘fans’ who just scream troll.

The have continued to receive multiple free gifts on a daily basis (including food, kids school shoes) during this pandemic despite clearly being able to afford these goods themselves. Is it really trolling to point out that these goods could go to more deserving people?

OP, I just want you to know how much your title made me feel my life as a woman who has never been able to have children is completely worthless in your eyes.

Why just mum's last time i checked a grown adult can easily remove themselves from SM or simply not post surely they dont need special rights or petitions to do that! Get a grip

They put themselves out there as mini celebrities and people are going to gossip.

No Mums do not get most of it it’s just that you are on Mumsnet and presumably generally follow Mum accounts.

What about the Dailymail and it’s sidebar of shame? We can disagree with it but should it be BANNED? That is just as bad, if not worse, than a few comments on an Internet forum.

What about Heat and their “Celebrities, they’re just like us” bit (maybe they’ve stopped doing this I don’t know, haven’t read it for a long time) where they literally circle cellulite and things? Again, distasteful...

I just don’t agree that Mums have it worse. Women generally I could agree with but that’s a wider discussion about women’s bodies being objectified so much and criticised and then us all being complicit too every time we buy a trashy magazine or whatever.

Tattle is mostly people gossiping. I would say about 15% of posts I find go too far but 85% is either gossip (completely fine), talking around the subjects that the Instagrammers have themselves brought up and constructive criticism. People should be allowed to criticise over sharing on social media and using children’s images for monetary gain.

I contributed to the Mumsnet thread mentioned and read the tattle one out of curiosity. I never saw anyone mention her parenting - someone may have done but I’m pretty sure it would have been one person and removed quickly as I would have seen if it was more than that. A couple of times someone commented on how she looks and they got jumped on and shut down by people telling them not to be dicks. You are talking about around 3 comments in a vast sea of people who were contributing to the thread because they had received poor service from her, an analysis that was incorrect or found her handing of business criticism to be lacking. Businesses get criticised and the way they handle that criticism speaks volumes. She has handled it badly. If you eat at a restaurant and your meal isn’t up to standard, you have every right to complain and expect them to rectify the situation.

Also, she is a stylist so therefore people are going to talk about her style and how she looks. If a chef posted a picture of a meal that didn’t look appetising, they would receive criticism. But even then, how she looks was barely mentioned on here and the couple of people who did say something were instantly told they were wrong to do so by everyone else.

I have nothing against her as a person, I think she’s probably a good mum, I think she looks great and has a good eye for fashion. However, I think the way she has handled criticism of her business is utterly ridiculous and has made things far worse. Holding her hands up and saying “thank you for drawing my attention to the feedback, yes, we could improve our service and I will have a think about what I can do to rectify it” would have placated everyone and been the mature, professional thing to do. Her tantrum and woe is me has just drawn even more attention to the business’s failings and made it all infinitely worse for her.

If you are going to put yourself out there, then you have to take the rough with the smooth. 10% of people will hate you and be nasty just because they can. It's not right but it will happen. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naive.

Hate speech is a crime already

What are the changes that you want?

A lower threshold for it? What would that be?

I don’t usually post on things like this but Susie is clearly too fragile to live her life through social media. When I was on the FB group she seemed constantly hurt by comments from disgruntled customers etc. Yes it’s frustrating but no-one can run a business and keep everyone happy all the time, there will always be complaints.
Someone close to her should be talking about the steps she can take to protect her privacy and her mental health. If she’s really reading threads online about herself she’s taking part in destructive behaviour towards herself.
Before anyone starts I’m not condoning trolls etc but this doesn’t even seem to be about that it happens at the slightest criticism.

@MoggyP

Hate speech is a crime already

What are the changes that you want?

A lower threshold for it? What would that be?

Yes a lower threshold specifically for women who have children who sell themselves / their services / their businesses on Instagram.

I think we can all agree they are truly an oppressed group.

Clearly this post has been done to raise style by susies following. Never heard of her before but you are directing people to her site. Very clever.

Are you the stylist yourself? If you are i would suggest if comments about your poor customer service and business practices are upsetting you that much then perhaps dedicate your time to solving that rather than posting on here to gain sympathy and a following.

I wouldn't book with a stylist that has such poor feedback, you clearly don't listen to what your customers are telling you and trying to silence them comes across as a narcissistic thing to do.

Never heard of you before this post and I can see why! Plenty of better stylists out there ladies that don't post or get friends to post to boost a failing business.

If the comments on here are too much for her then is she going to stop doing paid pieces in the daily mail because the comments there are much worse? Or is it ok if she’s being paid for it?

I’ve seen the ‘demonic’ comment twice in here, both times because you’ve posted it

99% of the comments Both here and tattle are not about susie herself but about styled by susie the business. SBS refusal to constructively deal with any negative feedback/complaints has driven people to discuss it on forums.

She lost any credibility when she tried to convince people that someone on tattle had outed her sons name which she had ‘always kept private’. In fact someone in tattle had mentioned it in passing about her saying he would be an only child and in fact the had talked about him including his name Multiple times in a daily mail article a year prior. Any attempts to mention that on her sympathy thread were swiftly deleted. I asked you to justify that when you commented on a previous thread but you didn’t, will you address it here?

The brand is misleading customers, has questionable ethics and is delivering a sub standard service with no customer recourse. This is my opinion. As a previously paying customer.

However, I feel very sorry for her that she appears to have taken some pretty rubbish business advice. Her concept is good, execution is poor.

Ps it’s Speech

Sites like tattle exist because influencers can’t handle any form of discussion or criticism that’s not licking their arses and are very friendly with the block button.

If People aren’t commenting on whoever this suzies social media pages then its not trolling. If she is actively searching for this stuff and it affecting her mental health then its on her.

Like every other job, you got your appraisals or reviews, why should influencers be exempt from from knowing they are doing a crap job time to time

Fyi I am against actively attacking anyone based on something that’s not in their control ie looks or how they parent but I don’t think gossip sites are as bad as influencers want to make it out.

I take it this post is by Susie? Who ironically I wasn't familiar with until she appeared to post here to tell us all how people are mean to her, thereby increasing the publicity of the people being (supposedly) mean to her.

The username Bekindnotabully got my bully radar going. The only people I have ever seen using the 'be kind' thing have been huge bullies themselves. And when they say 'be kind' what they actually mean is 'do everything I demand of you, because if you don't you're a horrible meany'. No thanks.

Hate laws are there to protect people from being attached foe the things they didn't choose to be.

Not to protect people from their own life and career choices.

Susie needs to learn how to separate criticism of her business from criticism of her as a person. The MN and Tattle threads are overwhelmingly dissatisfied customers criticising a business. If I went online and vented about shit customer service I'd had at Pizza Express nobody would claim that I was trolling, a bully or participating in hate speech.

Trolls or customers? If influencer is the job you've chosen.

The waitress in a restaurant or the cashier at Mcdonalds, or the call centre worker will have to deal with abusive customers face to face and have to suck it up and even be polite with them for the most part. Some faceless person having a go is no worse than that and is a price of doing business if that's how you've chose to make a living (and often lucrative more than the minimum wage service worker).

Obviously there's limits. Threats are a matter for the police for example.

Who decides what is hate speech?

I've seen criticism of Susie's business on here. I haven't seen a single comment saying she's a bad mum. The criticism isn't personal.

[quote ChaChaCha2012]Susie offers fashion advice to women for a fee. She'll show you round Primark for £100!

styledbysusie.co.uk/shop/[/quote]
Oh God I just Google imaged styled by susie. Now I don't want to troll or commit a hate crime but if I had paid for that styling service I would not be happy.