Boil Your Head

Angela Rayner.

Q: Do you think the government should do something about social media companies?

Yes, says Rayner. She says the government should stop people using anonymous accounts to criticise people.

She says the worst abuse she gets comes from anonymous accounts.

• Social media companies should stop people using anonymous accounts to spread abuse, says Rayner.

Q: Research shows that won’t stop it.

It might not stop it. But it would help, she says.

She says, at a recent event, social media companies said politicians should accept a higher threshold for abuse. That is unacceptable, she says.

Fuck off. Seriously, just fuck the fuck off, you vile control freak. Anonymity is the safeguard we have against vile creatures such as Rayner who, when in power, want to stop such criticism. Not to mention the nasty Twatterati who will use that same media to hound people out of a job if they dare to say something “unacceptable”. So go boil your head. If you can’t take the criticism, you shouldn’t have gone into politics. And for once, I agree with the social media companies. People who go into politics are generally the worst types who think that it is their role to boss the rest of us about, so, yes, abuse is something they should be prepared to take as part of the rough and tumble of politics. She should be thankful she isn’t serving in the Roman Senate.

Online abuse is something that goes with the territory. Some of you here may remember a character calling himself John Walton. This turned out to be a troll. His tactic was sealioning. It took a while to spot it, but once spotted, it was fairly obvious. Anyway, once banned, he came back in a number of guises, each time becoming more noxious – and insulting. At one point he tried doxxing in the comments, having crossed the line from mere trolling to stalking.

Has this been a problem that requires government intervention? No, of course not. I simply used WordPress’ tools along with a range of plugins to stop him from leaving comments here and everything has carried on as before. In the event of a comment getting through, so what? No one will see it and it goes into the ether – once I’ve taken a screengrab for evidence purposes, should I need to take any action.

So, no, we do not need the state to interfere for we can manage it ourselves and if someone commits a criminal offence, then keep the evidence and let plod get on with it. They will be only too happy as it means they won’t have to go out on the beat…