Twitter Abuse Continues to Occur

Posted By: Dr John Jewell

On Saturday, ex footballer Stan Collymore’s asserted on his talk sport radio show that Liverpool’s Luis Suarez had dived in getting his penalty against Aston Villa. This view displeased alot of people who took to Twitter to air their own views.  Later, Collymore wrote to his 505,000 Twitter followers: “In the last 24 hours I’ve been threatened with murder several times, demeaned on my race, and many of these accounts are still active. Why?”

He later added: “I accuse Twitter directly of not doing enough to combat racist/homophobic/sexist hate messages, all of which are illegal in the UK.” In another tweet he wrote: “Several Police forces have been fantastic. Twitter haven’t. Dismayed.”

Here’s another equally disturbing story.

Yesterday, Sky Sports News held a live Q&A with World Champion gymnast and Olympic medallist Beth Tweddle. Fans were given the opportunity to ask questions about her life as an athlete and her achievements at three Olympic Games. Unfortunately, some, mainly male, posters took the opportunity to abuse Tweddle about her looks and sexuality in the most horrific way. The everyday sexism project produced this storify board to highlight the nature and quantity of the invective

Sky Sports have condemned the “unacceptable and offensive abuse”. Twitter has until this point, to my knowledge, remained silent.

And so it goes on.

Here is a link to a piece I wrote some time ago about social media and the reality of corporations and media institutions prepared to accept and tolerate the vilest misogyny until their economic interests are threatened.