BBC Recognises That Twitter Abuse Doesn’t Only Affect Feminists After Caroline Criado-Perez Case

Of course online abuse of anyone is awful. Caroline Criado Perez has my full support and I told her so on Twitter yesterday.

I’m particularly pleased to have read this extract from this article at the BBC, which shows that they recognise that cyberbullies can target anyone for any reason.

But many other groups in society believe they too are targets for “trolls” – people who post malicious comments and threats online, often anonymously.

Kevin Healey, who has autism, launched a campaign against cyberbullying in April this year after suffering long-term abuse.

“Because of my autism I can’t do social things like go to the pub or go to nightclubs,” he told the BBC.

“Ninety per cent of my life is spent online. The entire social aspect of my life is online. But every time I go online I get abuse.”

Mr Healey, who has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter, was inspired to launch the campaign after receiving a death threat followed by extensive trolling over a period of two years.

He said that after receiving the threat, which was emailed by someone he knew only online, he was afraid to leave the house for three months.

“With autism, everything is magnified – so feelings of anxiety and worry are more intense. Everything is aggravated 1,000 times.”

Mr Healey said he was advised by Twitter to fill in a report form every time he received a malicious tweet.

“Have you seen the form? It’s about four pages long. I get hundreds [of offensive tweets] every day, I’d be there all day and all night just filling in the forms,” he said.

He would like to see the introduction of a button which records the IP address of a tweet when activated, and notifies the police.

“Current laws against cyberbullying just don’t work at all,” he said. “They haven’t worked for me.”