Is this the most hated woman on TV?

[IwantToRetire]

Many posts on different threads on FWR include comments, concerns about the online world. So was interested to see this article in today's Observer magazine.

But in fact doesn't really touch on the issues that come up on FWR.

But thought it might be of interest anyway, as it focuses on how disinformation gets spread online, and the consequences. And how women just doing their job can be subjected to abuse and threats.

The BBC receives more abusive messages about Marianna Spring than anyone else. But the disinformation correspondent remains hopeful about people – and the world we live in

While organising an interview with Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first Social Media Investigations correspondent, I asked if I could meet her at home. It would be more intimate than meeting at the BBC’s offices, I said, more relaxed. But a communications manager called me on the phone. It’s a bit sensitive, she said. It’s not that Marianna doesn’t want me to go to her house, she explained, it’s just… the trolls.

In the first five months of 2023, the BBC received 14,488 messages abusive enough to be escalated by their system designed to detect hate; 11,771 of those, around 80%, were about Spring. Due to her reporting on conspiracy theories she’s regularly targeted with death threats and harassment, both on and offline. For a while, a man camped in a tent outside the BBC’s New Broadcasting House shouting “disinformation agent” in her face as she left work. Which means, while I can say Spring welcomes me with a hug and invites me into her front room for a conversation that will span murder and Kate Middleton and teenage boys, I can’t describe the city she lives in, or who she lives with, or if she lives with anybody else at all, or give any personal details that might put her in danger.

“It’s quite a big deal for me this,” she says nervously, as we settle on her sofa. “I keep so private, because I know that the world I investigate has attracted this group of trolls who will stop at nothing to figure out literally everything about me and then use it in some way.” She once mentioned that her dad was a doctor, which led to strangers suggesting this connection is why she is invested in killing people with the Covid vaccine. Once she shared a picture online of her family’s 19-year-old cat and she was accused noisily of animal cruelty. “They also called her Chairman Miaow,” Spring adds, “which was actually quite funny.”

Article in full at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/27/its-important-to-talk-about-online-abuse-marianna-spring-on-trolls-conspiracy-theorists-and-positivity

That is quite shocking - 11,000 abusive messages in 5 months!

The russian bots are fairly sophisticated

Why can't people disagree with this woman without physically threatening her safety and trying to ruin her personal life? I know people are dissatisfied with BBC News output and editorial policy but how they're treating this woman is not a credible method of addressing it.

Is it because she's a woman? I have my doubts that a man would be treated this badly.

I'd wager that a LOT of the messages they get are pointing out this story:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/how-the-bbcs-disinformation-correspondent-lied-on-her-cv/

er, ive never heard of her. Who is she?

She’s certainly loving her new profile. Most journalists go by the adage that you want to cover the story but never be the story. I swear there was an identical interview in another broadsheet a few months ago. Shame she’s actually totally useless and as much a spreader of disinformation as those she claims to correct. Not to mention the CV issue.

I didn't know about the CV thing and cant work out what the lie is, as the article is behind a paywall.

But did find the bits of the interview (it is basically a puff piece) about which conspiracy theories people seem to get totally caught up in quite disturbing.

I remember being quite shocked when Nicola Bulley first disappeared and all these people turned up as though part of some pod cast thinking they would be able to detect what had happened. Just gross and insensitive.

But, from the article, it doesn't look like as the BBC fact checker, that she has spent any time of the wide spread internet "theories" about trans people being the most marginalised, murdered, etc., etc..

I wonder if that is because if she did fact check and disprove the BBC itself would have to change some of its public commentary.

Oh that’s disappointing. I can’t read the story, as it’s behind a paywall. But the headline is clear enough. I don’t think lying on your CV is a ‘mistake’ — it’s dishonesty, and I wouldn’t trust any adult who I knew to have done that.

But she doesn’t deserve the abuse and threats. That’s appalling.

I think it proves she’s doing her job well.

Really enjoy all her stuff more of her please! And if it aggravates the misogynistic lame brains so much the better.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/08/marianna-spring-bbc-journalist-disinformation-lied-on-cv/

Bit more info.

I think it was quite an innovative decision to create this specific role for a journalist, and that a lot of the insane hostility is down to the fact that she has to tackle head-on some of the most irrational and aggressive currents of online discourse.
So hopefully she has a very robust and supportive infrastructure from the BBC, to help her do her job, stay safe and stay sane. Particularly given the fact that she is a woman. When they appointed her the BBC must have known that a woman in that role would suffer even more abuse than a man in that role.

I was also interested when the BBC set up this role. However, I've been following Spring's work for ages, initially during the pandemic, and while most of the time she's identifying misrepresentations/fake stories, added to this is her being a guardian of BBC-approved narratives and some of what she puts forward is more about "correct" political interpretations than actual demonstrable facts. So overall I find her work to be something that cannot be completely trusted which is somewhat ironic considering her title.

But I agree the hate is depressing and worrying and I don't think the level would be anywhere near as high if a man was in her role.

Agree on both points.

Doing her job well by lying on her CV to get a job where she 'factchecks' other people and ignores the utter bullshit that the BBC churn out?

Aye right. A job well done.

So glad it’s not just me!

Archive of the New European article. https://archive.ph/dTkQt

Shall we guess what percentage are men?

I don't know how much of it is to do with her being a woman and how much to do with her job.

She behaved appallingly towards Richard D. Hall and tried to smear him and destroy him, without any interest in seriously addressing or countering any of his huge amount of scrupulously well-researched and carefully documented arguments; he was just character-assassinated and painted as a 'crazy conspiracy theorist' and thus clearly the 'baddie'.

Whatever you think of Richard and his arguments, he is always respectful and very happy to fairly debate and consider all angles.

He would never resort to threats or violence against those who disagree with him - it's 100% not his style at all; but maybe MS has also gone against other, lower-profile targets in a similar bulldog approach, who don't have anything like the same respect, good nature or intelligence as Richard does?

Of course, I'm not for a moment suggesting that MS deserves any of the threats or violence that she receives - but she does need to understand that being given that job by the BBC doesn't automatically make her right every single time and beyond any kind of (respectful verbal/written) challenge that she can just dismiss as 'stupid haters'.

Richard D Hall? Who claimed the Manchester Arena bombings did not happen and caused huge mental distress to seriously injured and bereaved people. That Richard D Hall?

I don't like her and I find her fact-checking often leads to something to be desired, and she's often spouting the "correct" opinion, rather than the evidenced one, but it's possible to complain about her (not that I'd ever bother) without sending vile abuse.

And, whoever said there was another similar article about this recently, I'm sure there have actually been several in the past few months!

Just to repeat, although I can see others are totally caught up in the CV issue, and it would seem other "un-professional" behaviour, I was more interested in the concept of the job.

The main stream media now have to be doubly cautious about accepting what it actual factual news, and what is that seems to take precidence, satisfying us the public with innuedos and suspicions, and a completely bonkers to me obsession that somehow people feel they are part of a situation, ie visiting crime scenes, or carefully cherry picking online quotes / facts to validated "their story" of events they aren't even part of.

I think main stream media is also partly to blame, for instance following any tiny twist or turn in stories about the royal family, who in terms of news only need to be reported for doing their "duties".

But it is us the public who demand this type of gossip nonsense, and media channels know it increases their audiences.

Much as a few decades ago, newspapers would put a picture of Diana on their front page with no real story, because apparently sales shot up.

I can’t read the story, as it’s behind a paywall.

As I dont pay to read the Guardian / Observer website, dont think this is true.

But you may have to sign up.

Or just post the web link into one of the many archive web sites.

Are you joking about Richard Hall or being serious? I can’t think anyone would defend the man but what do I know 😳

Yes, he has some very controversial views indeed - but she wasn't interested in anything other than an ad hominem attack, which does rather give the impression to sceptical onlookers that she can't easily counter his many documented and well-reasoned (whether correct or woefully wrong) allegations and wipe the floor with him that way - especially considering that her job is to look into, identify, expose and roundly debunk fake news or allegations - not just to reassure us that she is always right, so that's that.

As with all things, I think that just saying "No debate" makes you look very weak - and is a very odd thing to do if you're so certain that you're obviously correct and can easily prove it - and the clear superiority and truth of your case - in front of a sizeable audience.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/23/manchester-arena-survivors-win-case-against-man-who-claimed-there-was-no-bomb

Excerpt:

^The court heard that the Hibberts were among those standing nearest to Abedi when he detonated his device, which was filled with 3,000 nuts and bolts.
Hall has claimed that several of those who died are living abroad or were dead before the attack, telling the court he believed that no one was “genuinely injured” in the bombing. Jonathan Price, for the Hibberts, said the bomb had changed Martin Hibbert’s life “in every conceivable way”. “They have both suffered life-changing injuries from which they will never recover,” the barrister said. The court heard that Martin Hibbert sustained 22 wounds from shrapnel, and Eve Hibbert suffered a “catastrophic brain injury” after a bolt from the bomb struck her in the head – leading to her being presumed dead at the scene.^

I have no idea how Marianna Spring tackled this man but I'd say he's a bit more than controversial. Deranged and damaging. I can't imagine how the family of those who died feel about this claims.