Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The joy of online hatred

If you're tough enough, there's nothing more bracing than an online bitch-fight

issue 01 March 2014

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[/audioplayer]On Saturday morning, when the body of the beautiful Antipodean model and television personality Charlotte Dawson was being taken from her home in Sydney, I was back in Blighty rolling up my sleeves and getting stuck in for yet another happy hour in the gladiatorial arena that is the Spectator online comments section. Wherein, amongst other things, an angry trans-person had threatened me with the Police, for committing Hate Crimes (note the use of Krazy Kapitals) and a Beating from her Hells Angel Husband.

These two things might seem completely random were it not for the fact that in 2012 Charlotte Dawson was admitted to hospital after a massive twit-off in which she was targeted by an organised online campaign of harassment at least in part due to her involvement with an anti-cyber-bullying crusade. ‘It kept going and going and going and going and going,’ she said of the anonymous hordes who told her to kill herself.

Some people saw a Hint of Hypocrisy (smells like an interesting fabric conditioner) in this, Dawson being notorious down under for her rather catty attitude as an Australia’s Next Top Model judge.

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