'Caroline Flack’s suicide was the third linked to Love Island, and even after all of the BeKind messages, female contestants on the show are still receiving shocking levels of abuse.'
– fittingly titled ‘The Chilling’ – which shows a sharp increase in online violence against women journalists: “This is a major issue. Data shows there’s no gender difference in trolling for ordinary people, but prominent women seem to attract more negative attention than prominent men. Caroline Flack certainly fits that”analysed reality TV contestants and found that “women, especially women of colour” were disproportionately subject to trolling.
Influencer Nhung Nguyen was incorrectly labelled a super-spreader in March 2020, after becoming Hanoi’s first confirmed Covid-19 patient, and her account was filled with abuse. While in the US, the internet piled on Lawrence Garbuz, a Jewish lawyer who was labelled New York’s ‘patient zero’, which he says was unfair and incorrect. Others were publicly shamed and called out after being photographed without masks.
“Pile-on culture always existed but with social media, it’s become amplified and expanded and creates more adversity,” explains Marianne Franklin, professor of Global Media and Politics at Goldsmiths University. “There’s no analysis. People will say nasty things about people but now it’s through a megaphone.’”She believes the blame lies less with individuals, and more with big media moguls that allow their platforms to be used in this way.