Daily Mail Aus and News.com.au accused of fuelling online troll behaviour
Public broadcaster, the ABC, has directed anger and blame at publishers News.com.au, owned by News Corp Australia, and The Daily Mail Australia for fuelling inappropriate online behaviour towards its presenters.
In a statement published on the broadcaster’s website yesterday afternoon, the ABC said that “under the guise of concern, these stories are republishing abuse”.
The stories referred to by the ABC, which were published yesterday morning include: ‘Just plain gutless’: Aussie Twitter users slam online trolls for sickening Lisa Millar comments, which was published on News.com.au by Rebecca Borg, and ‘Sickening Twitter trolls hit a new low as their vile insults against ABC host Lisa Millar get disgustingly personal more than a year after she was bullied off the platform’ which appeared on The Daily Mail Australia by Antionette Milienos.
Calling out two very worthwhile campaigns “Let Her Speak” & “Justice Shouldn’t Hurt” does not even go close to making up for the frequently misogynistic articles published by news.com.au – where they seem to have taken the Daily Mail tact of describing women’s outfits, those fab “you won’t recognise this celeb now” articles as an excuse to point out weight gain/loss or aging, showing a picture of Erin Molan crying at her father’s funeral with the classy headline “Erin Molan tears up at father’s funeral”, not to mention the relentlessly trash articles from their so-called royal expert which are just Kate and/or Megan bashing exercises.
Time to get off that high horse and have a look at what is being published everyday….
I think the comment from news.com.au is missing the point. The original article featured screenshots of some of the troll’s twitter comments. It’s not that the story isn’t newsworthy, rather why do you need to republish and platform people who are just plain hateful?
Pointing out that you run pro-female campaigns is virtue signalling, without addressing the actual concern. It seems the ABC’s statement hit a nerve, as the later version of the article removed all such screenshots. Funny that.
Well done Lisa Millar – a journalist of quality and integrity. Trash media just fans the flames of the abuse – its part of their bread and butter. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one day it was revealed that some of the troll’s’ hateful speech was manufactured by the media outlets themselves. Unfortunately there is a very big appetite for schadenfreude in our society – just look at the success of the reality TV shows where people are cruel and hurtful to each other. (As the nastiness arcs up, so do the ratings). We are a very dysfunctional society, increasingly adrift from the guiding principles of a civilized culture.