80% Of The BBC’s Online Abuse Is Addressed To One Female Journalist: “It’s Normal To Hate Me”
A female BBC journalist has discovered that she receives more than 80% of all the online abuse received by the entire corporation.
Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first disinformation and social media correspondent, tells The Times newspaper that, during the first six months of this year alone, she received more than 11,771 personal slurs. She tells the newspaper: “It’s really normal to really hate me.”
Such abuse spiked earlier this year following Spring’s appearance in a BBC documentary, measuring the increase in hate and disinformation on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover. Musk tweeted: “Sorry for turning Twitter from nurturing paradise into a place that has… trolls.”
Related Stories
Breaking News
"Do You Not Speak English?": Trump Former Aide Sebastian Gorka Tears Strip Off BBC Journalist
Legal
Donald Trump Pleads Not Guilty On Conspiracy Charges To Overturn 2020 Election
Despite receiving threatening and hostile messages on a daily basis, Spring tells The Times she has to consider whether or not to block people: “I think there’s something about blocking people that means they can be, like, ‘Oh, you’re not open to a conversation.’”
And she says such a level of trolling won’t stop her work: “There are loads of people who get awful online abuse. I don’t get racist abuse, I don’t get homophobic abuse. There are journalists all across the media who experience this.”
“I have to be aware of my physical safety in a way that I never was before. That is the thing I really don’t like.”
Spring has worked at the BBC for four years, and was made disinformation and social media correspondent in 2020, just in time for the Covid pandemic, the global lockdown and all the resulting theories and conspiracies that were shared online. Her latest ten-part podcast for the broadcaster, Marianna in Conspiracyland, explores the conspiracy movement that came out of the pandemic, and has proved a hit with younger listeners.
Must Read Stories
Union Reveals New Health Care Demands; No New Talks Set With AMPTP
‘Barbie’ & ‘Turtles’ Lead Sizzling Weekend As 2023 Take Tops $6 Billion, Up 22% Over 2022
Lesli Linka Glatter Re-elected DGA President: “Together, We Will Continue Our Shared Fight”
The Film That Lit My Fuse: ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ Director/Co-Writer Juel Taylor
Read More About:
Source: Read Full Article