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The Tories and Republicans often like to claim the Left is abusive, especially online. But most online sexist, racist and homophobic abuse comes from Far Right who enjoy impunity due to majority right wing media control.
But a new survey by Amnesty International of abuse received by women MPs in the run-up to the last election clearly shows that online abuse in Britain comes overwhelmingly from the Right:
And the MP who easily receives the most abuse is Britain’s first female black MP Diane Abbott:
Hats off to Diane for taking such industrial scale horrific abuse so fearlessly.
You can read Amnesty’s full report here.
How online abuse is politically hijacked
By OwenJones (summary ) All online abuse is unacceptable. The principal victims of online abuse are women. I have female friends who have turned down television appearances because men will bombard them on social media with sickening misogynistic abuse about how they look….
There is a certain type of man — whatever their political persuasion — who cannot stand women with opinions, and believe those who express them are fair game.
More generally, women of colour face particular abuse. It is unlikely there is any British politician who as great a victim of online abuse as Diane Abbott, both in terms of intensity and how sustained it is.
Yesterday, I shared my own experience of online abuse. Every day, I get bombarded with abuse, often of a violently homophobic nature. I searched through some of these profiles for evidence that they supported the Conservative Party. Here they are again.
All of these are Tory supporters (I’ve checked each account), and this is indicative of the abuse I get every single day. ..1,172 1,172 Replies ..3,075 3,075 Retweets 3,638
Take yesterday’s Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is a vicious newspaper which relentlessly stirs up hatred in a way that directly impacts people’s lives, which I’ll come on to. Online abuse is reduced to ‘hard-left bullying’. …
This is the weaponisation of abuse: not intending to deal with abuse and eliminate it, but to use it as a political prop to attack the left. You see, online abuse, so the argument goes, exposes the real nature of the left as a whole. The left is a venomous political entity defined by viciousness and hatred, intolerant of opposition, threatening even, according to this narrative — and that is why they must be kept from power.
But this goes against my own lived experience. Every single day, large numbers of self-professed right-wingers bombard me with abuse, threats of violence, homophobic hatred, and so on. It is completely erased from the discussion. It does not exist, because it is politically inconvenient.
Here is an email from someone who clearly doesn’t take kindly to my views on faith schools. Three weeks ago, right-wingers circulated my home address, including specific instructions about how to enter the block of flats. This has happened over and over again: one hard right account took images from Google Street View, adding an arrow pointing to my bedroom window and an arrow pointing to my front door. …
Enough is enough. A panicked right is becoming ever more abusive because they fear losing. And the more the mainstream media ignore it, the more responsibility the rest of us have to highlight it.
full post HERE
The Free 