Women and trolling

[WhyTheCagedBirdTweets]

I find myself very upset this morning concerning reports of a so-called 'Twitter Troll' that has committed suicide after she was shamed on national
Tv.

I should make a confession here - I, like many people on the internet, get completely furious sometimes when I see obstinacy, arrogance etc etc. and sometimes go a bit OTT in my reaction. I like to think I stay within the bounds of decency and legality though! I guess not everyone understands where those boundaries lie, however. I think teenagers are probably most vulnerable on this point, but not exclusively as this morning's papers make clear.

What worries me most about this is how the media lumps people together. Not everyone is going to be as appalling as the types that were abusing Stella Creasey, but clearly 'Twitter Troll' is now a label that can be easily applied. The irony is that the trolls then become trolled themselves.... I just see the whole thing as yet another battleground where, ultimately, women will be the losers. Shaming doesn't seem gender-neutral.

Sorry this is a ramble. Can anyone make sense of this?

Nb - I think it's probably best to avoid comment on this specific case. Or the McCanns

Doorstepping is public shaming isn't it? There's something almost medieval about this. I just feel so sorry for everyone concerned and so angry too.

People know that posts can be traced. I am at a loss as to why someone would do the equivalent of a modern poison pen letter.

Maybe she got carried away with the mob. I did have the mental picture of villagers with pitchforks when I saw the news. Her son posting a 'tribute' online was ironic.

Oh, the days we live in. I'm a Non-tritterer, Non-faceache user and pleased to remain so.

Wasn't the man in the rape threat case sent to jail. I seem to remember a woman in court for similar.

Newsnight did do a 'trace and confront' piece about the rape threats made to Stella Creasey and Caroline Criado-Perez. They didn't doorstep as such, but they did phone the man they tracked down and passed his details to the police.

The Newsnight piece was relatively thoughtful and well put together, concluding by contrasting the 'regular' trolling that some BBC accounts receive with the really nasty and pernicious sexual language and threats that came out when they started their investigation.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23503108

As for the piece in the news this morning regarding the 'Twitter Troll', the labelling is appalling, and the media would do well to remember the Samaritans' guidelines on the reporting of suicide too.

A male troll was followed to a bus stop by the BBC a couple of years ago. The troll's target was a dead man, but that Panorama article also focussed on the trolling suffered by Cher Lloyd.

And there wasn't a lack of coverage of the Caroline Criado Perez trolls in the media I look at (which I admit isn't broad).

So in the media I see, I haven't detected a gender issue in who they choose to cover.

I suppose that if a compaint is made then the police have to follow it up.

A warning/caution is a way of nipping hysteria in the bud. Some of these start with 'I hate xx, he's an idiot' and ramp up to 'he should be shot'. The internet is like the wild west.

But doorstepping people? If she had made spcific terror attacks, then that's another matter I guess but is this in the public interest? Do I feel safer in my bed? Will it deter the next enraged citizen? I think now.

I think that the media have treated this poor woman appallingly. It's led me to wonder whether women are more likely to be targeted; women are more likely to be 'outed' when they are ones doing the targeting; women are more likely to suffer from social exclusion following public shaming.

Is a clearer situation where you have two people filmed performing a sex act in public, say at a festival, and the man's behaviour is applauded but the woman's behaviour shamed?

A clearer situation, but a different one.

Mainstream and social media shaming of women clearly goes on. But this thread is asking not about media in general, not about trolling in general, but about media responses to trolling.

Which is an interesting question to ask.

I guess it was inevitable though given the way tabloids hound people. To some extent, they created the model and the script for the behaviour of this woman and others like her. Once internet commenting and unmonitored sites and twitter took off, sooner or later, one of the trolls would become their target. And of course, since the stereotype of a troll is a man, even an angry young (white) man, being female brought the Sun down on her. Because boys will be boys, afterall, but woman, particularly mothers, should do better.

The best that can be said re her is, evidently, she was still shameable. She hadn't bought in so deeply that she took this as an opportunity to speak more publicly? IYSWIM? It is a blessing her son doesn't live in the UK and is protected somewhat from the next stage of the tabloid cycle.

Hang on - she (and all trolls) use public fora to hound people! And no, that's not beside the point. The only difference between what she was doing and what Sky were doing is Sky were exposing criminal activity and she was posting hateful stuff in a public place about a couple who have lost a child.

Yeah, Flatly I'll go back to my lurking.

There is a huge power disparity between a single individual troll working alone and SKY a multi-national corporation with huge influence who can reach literally millions of people, Longtalljosie.

I think you are right, OP. When power games like this are played then women always end up the greater losers.

I think people can easily become the subject of a media whirlwind and quickly made out to be something they're not. The impression painted by scurrilous reports for a voyeuristic and shameless public will soon exceed reality and a witch hunt will ensue. People that don't 'fit' are especially vulnerable , such as Chris Jeffries the Bristol murder suspect. This is why I think women are generally more vulnerable; it wasn't expected that a church-going lady in her sixties might post abusive messages. They weren't that abusive I don't think, she was rather obsessed about the McCanns and seemed more of a conspiracy-theorist. And they made a story out of that - a story that drove the poor woman to suicide. Do we honestly think the as coverage would have been given if she was a man? I have no doubt that there were many men part of her group of McCann theorists, many of whom posted worse. But they singled her out.

Yeah I think on the one hand the police did react well to the Stella Creasy / Criado-Perez threats and the media did focus on them. Wasn't there even a Panorama report on misogyny in the internet? Awareness of the issue has definitely been raised.

But on the other hand women do suffer more media focus when they commit crimes traditionally carried out by men.

No need to lurk Vivacia, not everyone has the same opinion or views no one view or though is right or wrong. Just different.

Oh no, Vivacia, I didn't mean to make you feel pushed away!

I was trying to keep in view the distinction between what you described and what the OP described - but I phrased my post really badly.

Please do post about what you want to say!

wow @ the hypocrisy and double-standards. If the troll had been male the reaction here would be totally different.

"However, I think door stepping and publicly shaming someone in this way is wrong."

If the troll/abuser was male, would you be happy for him to be publicly shamed?

"Maybe she got carried away with the mob."

Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Maybe some of those who tweeted to Caroline or Stella also "got carried away with the mob"? If that is the case should they get let off lightly?

"I think that the media have treated this poor woman appallingly."

Perhaps because she's female the police and media should give her special treatment and leniency that men wouldn't be given?

"Is a clearer situation where you have two people filmed performing a sex act in public, say at a festival, and the man's behaviour is applauded but the woman's behaviour shamed?"

Actually if a man and woman were to go naked in public, the woman would be cheered while the man would end up in a police van and on the sex offender registry.

"There is a huge power disparity between a single individual troll working alone and SKY a multi-national corporation with huge influence who can reach literally millions of people,"

Again, if she were a he would you have posted that?

Reaction when a man commits a crime: "monster! lock him up!"

Reaction when a woman commits a crime: "why would she have done that? Maybe it was because of this, or this? There must have been a good reason for her doing that. That poor woman!"

Q ‘how long must the Mccanns suffer’ answer ‘for the rest of their miserable lives’.

It's not a nice thing to say but it's not quite the same as threatening to rape someone. Does that make sense now?

www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/read-the-deleted-tweets-brenda-leyland-sent-the-mccanns

She made 4,625 tweets over 4 years (surely that in itself amounts to stalking?) and threatened to make the McCanns "live in shame". That sounds like a serious threat to me.