At what point does sharing your opinion on social media turn into harassment, trolling and hate?
I, like many others, am enjoying autumn TV at the moment - Strictly, Bake Off, Celebrity Traitors. It's really the only time I enjoy watching television, and it's rare you can watch programmes lately where you genuinely don't know what's going to happen - because early releases, spoiler pages make it so we know everything before it happens.
I used to enjoy scrolling social media when these programmes were on, especially with Bake Off you know, "Oooh that brownie hasn't set properly has it?" "Love that XYZ got that handshake from Paul!" But now - social media is awful and it's become so problematic I can't even bring myself to look at what people are saying about this joint experience, so it feels like that community aspect has been lost.
Bake Off actually put out a statement on their social media the day before the show started telling people to be kind, reminding them that the bakers are real people and that they won't accept hate speech on their page. Hate speech! About baking!
Then Strictly started and I KNOW people don't like change, but within ten minutes of the first show people were slating the new presenters and calling for them to be sacked. Imagine you start a new job, first day and you're learning the ropes and people are already telling you you aren't good enough and need to go. I personally love the new format and for the people saying "We don't need 3 presenters" you forget that early on it was Bruce, Tess and Claudia - they've just gone back to an older format. The abuse Josh has received online has been abhorrent - he's just doing his job. It's horrible.
And then we come to The Celebrity Traitors. This one surprised me the most (although I don't know why) and it actually cemented for me the decision they made not to release the names of which charities the celebs were playing for from the start. Within hours of the final there were so many negative comments about the chosen charities of the winners, how the show had been ruined by diversity and wokeness and how people would no longer be paying for their TV licence. Could you imagine the weeks and weeks of trolling the celebs would have faced had the charities been mentioned from the start? The ongoing harassment, the requests for the show to be cancelled. I understand why it's only mentioned right at the end.
How have we got here? I know, from personal experience, this is not a new thing. 10 years ago I was at the scene of a terror attack and spoke about my experiences to the news - I was then relentlessly trolled for weeks. Ok, someone questioning if what I was saying is true - fine, we have free speech and you're right to not trust everything you see. But to receive death threats and very personal attacks - that's not ok.
So you should be able to say "Why is Ross behaving like people are actually getting murdered on this show?" but you shouldn't be able to threaten two people for donating to a certain charity because you don't agree with them.
My personal experience, and seeing things like this over and over is why I set up The Social Media Frontline programme. I speak to organisations and help them develop crisis comms plans for if they find themselves at the centre of a social media storm or going viral for the wrong reasons - and give them the practical tools they need. But also – I offer advice on the emotional and mental wellbeing support surrounding those who are facing the brunt of the online vitriol - your social media teams.
So next time you're watching a show and say "I don't like that" think – “Do I need to go out of my way to say it to the organisation or person, and do I need to escalate it into something nasty or even illegal?” Because as much as I'm doing my best with The Social Media Frontline and supporting organisations, in an ideal world I'd be speaking to the trolls and harassers and getting them to rethink their actions. But we don't live in an ideal world.
And for what it's worth I don't think the charities that Romesh and Bash have decided to donate to will find themselves struggling, in fact I think the negative press will only lead to more people giving to those charities. And this is part of it too - there's a real skill to turning those negatives into positives, we've seen the RNLI do this particularly well and they have seen more people donating. But the two celebs - they are just having to deal with it, and that really shouldn't be the case.
If you’re now thinking you need extra help supporting your teams with online harassment - ask me more about The Social Media Frontline - it will be worth it.
