Something for all of us to think about?
From the Guardian:
“No one in the public eye should expect to avoid scrutiny and criticism. As the UK’s first black female MP, Diane Abbott never had the opportunity to be so naive. She has not only weathered political storms and prejudice but endured years of outright abuse without complaint. Now, as she has revealed in the Guardian, things are getting worse – and it is preventing people from entering the field or speaking out”….:
“Once, the pushback was against the actual arguments for equality and social justice. Now the pushback is the politics of personal destruction,” she wrote.”
That reflects in part a political discourse that is becoming coarser and more vicious. But those who do not fit the traditional mould of a public figure – white, male and straight – are more often subjected to vitriol, and such vitriol will more often focus on their identity, not their opinions. …
It should be extraordinary that high-profile women receive a torrent of hate messages directed at their gender and ethnicity, and rape and death threats. Instead, it is becoming routine. Female MPs say they feel physically unsafe; Jo Cox was targeted online before her murder by a far-right terrorist, and her death is used to threaten them. …Social media has amplified longstanding prejudice, increasing the pressure on its targets through volume and normalising personalised abuse and hatred….
- ….leaders need to make it clear that there is no place for misogyny and racism in public life.
- Technology firms must get as serious about tackling abuse as they are about, for example, copyright infringement.
- Other institutions too must consider how they handle the problem.
- Finally, the rest of us should challenge prejudice, resist the normalisation of cruelty and bigotry, and consider how we can build a civil, inclusive and constructive public sphere… “
- And maybe agree to post using our actual names [unless there is a real threat of exposure to harm]
“Freedom of speech is precious. But it is not an inalienable right to bully, threaten and belittle others into silence without consequence.”