Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, has turned to seek help from police after receiving a stream of abuse on Twitter, including threats of physical and sexual violence.
Creasy had become a target for threats after she expressed support for Caroline Criado-Perez, another victim of online abuse who successfully campaigned to put an image of Jane Austen on a £10 banknote.
The hate campaign waged by anonymous Internet ‘trolls’ has put the spotlight on Twitter. Users have criticised the microblogging platform for its slow response and the complexity of the reporting process.
A petition calling for Twitter to add a ‘report abuse’ button, launched on Saturday, has so far attracted almost 70,000 signatures.
It has been a difficult few days for Twitter. First, the trolls attacked Claire Perry MP, the woman who masterminded the ’opt-out’ adult content filter plans, announced by the Prime Minister last week.
Then, the angry mob switched to freelance journalist and feminist campaigner Criado-Perez, who launched the petition to feature more women on banknotes. And on Monday, police confirmed they were investigating threatening messages sent to Creasy, including rape threats.
Rather than ignoring the tweets and blocking their authors, the MP had engaged the trolls, told them she was logging the threats and retweeted some messages to her 30,000 followers and the Waltham Forest police station. She even started a special hashtag, #takebacktwitter.
RT @KJHUJGYFTRRFYGH: @stellacreasy YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR BACK….IM GONNA RAPE YOUR ASS AT 8PM AND PUT THE VIDEO ALL OVER THE INTERNET
— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) July 29, 2013
Meanwhile, Criado-Perez appeared on Newsnight on Monday, admitting that the threats have made her feel vulnerable, but they wouldn’t drive her “off the Internet”. Police have already questioned a 21-year-old man in connection with threats to Criado-Perez.
Both women have criticised the way Twitter has handled the situation. Creasy said it was difficult to get in touch with the representatives of the company, and filling in the reporting forms took too much time. Even after Twitter suspended some accounts, it was obvious that their users were just creating new accounts and continuing with their assault.
“Free speech is incredibly important on and offline, but it’s not free speech for someone to be threatened with rape. We have to have ways of dealing with that and we mustn’t misunderstand the level of cyberharassment taking place in this country,” said Creasy during an interview on BBC Radio 4.
In response, Twitter has announced plans to include a button for reporting abuse within every tweet, a feature currently present in its iOS app, but not online or on other mobile platforms.
“We are constantly talking with our users, advocacy groups, and government officials to see how we can improve Twitter, and will continue to do so. Such feedback has always played an important role in the development of our service. We hope the public understands the balances we’re trying to strike as we continue to work to make our systems and processes better,” wrote Del Harvey, senior director of trust and safety at Twitter.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, warned that any solution achieved through the online platform will be “inadequate,” and suggested it is the job of the law enforcement agencies to deal with threats.
“Depending on the volume of complaints, abuse buttons would use automated sifting techniques. Thus they could be prone to abuse, or at the very least, mistakes. This may not mean that they are irrelevant, but they may not be as useful as is hoped,” he said.
“In the case of victims of harassment, the police need to investigate, arrest and prosecute offenders. No doubt, after a few cases, people would start to avoid crossing a line.”
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Make no mistake about it: Stella Creasy loves the attention. She is loving every minute of it. And she is not in the least bit threatened by anyone on Twitter. She blames Twitter for their supposed inaction, but Twitter is not acting because it knows what this woman is all about.
Stella Creasy is an outstandingly beautiful woman at 36, but she has been gorgeous since a very young age. A very, very young age. So she knows about men and she knows that they adore her. And she knows exactly what turns them on. And what turns them on is exactly what is happening to her now: sex talk. And specifically sex talk about having sex with her bottom! When it comes to beautiful blondes, the focus is always on their gorgeous bottom. And so it is with Stella Creasy.
She is a gorgeous blonde and she is a politician. Two good reasons for her to be conniving. And when you take into account that this is an extraordinarily ambitious woman who wants to be prime minister, then everything makes sense: She orchestrated this whole thing. At the very least she was behind the first instance of it, knowing full well that there will be many more copycats once the story broke out.
There are absolutely no limits to what a beautiful blonde politician would do to get ahead. We know this from Kirsten Gillibrand in New York, although she has yet to try the stuff that Stella Casey has so skillfully pulled off lately. No doubt "rape" and "bottom" would work equally well for Kirsten Gillibrand because her bottom is equally gorgeous. And equally inviting.
The problem with beautiful female blondes who are on the rise is that there is no moral code. No moral code and no justice. They have no problem destroying lives in their desire to reach the top.
And when Stella Casey objects to Page Three female nudity it is because she wants no woman competing with her in the morning paper. A beautiful woman wants all the attention on her. And all the focus of the morning paper to be on her. She will no doubt make a bid for prime minister. She is a "victimized" woman who will have women fully behind her. And she is a woman with a bottom worthy of a Twitter scandal. A gorgeous bottom. That should get all the men behind her. Firmly behind her.
Wow, you really are an idiot.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps she's a politician no matter how she looks and that rape threats are never acceptable?
If she's living the attention then it's only because that public attention has given her the power to make Twitter change, a big achievement in itself.
Judge politicians on their politics, not their looks.