Mum’s bid to take down site over bullying claims
A mum is fighting to take down an online forum which she says has targeted her with bullying and harassment over videos she uploads to YouTube.
Michelle Chapman, or Mummy Chelle as she is known online, is taking on cyber bullies and trolls with a petition to rally people to boycott gossip website Tattle Life.
So far she has gained more than 19,500 signatures along with the support of MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, Helen Whately.
But the site says it has a zero tolerance approach to abusive and hurtful content.
The 36-year-old, from Maidstone, started making videos about her and her family in May 2016, drawing more than 2,300 subscribers and has expanded to Twitter, Instagram, and her own blog.
She specialises in content most would find completely harmless, including unboxing make-up or telling viewers about holiday plans, but it has opened her up to vile criticism online, sometimes focused on her looks, health, and children.
Michelle also claims someone posted information about when her partner was in or out of their home.
“Towards the end of last year I was told there was a gossip board called Tattle Life where I was being spoken about in a really disgusting way,” she said. “I went on and saw threads where mine and about four or five other channels were being talked about. I went on there to defend myself but I was banned.”
The former nursing assistant says she started posting to YouTube as a hobby after leaving her job due to illness and to look after her children.
While she has made a lot of friends on the platform she has also made a lot of enemies. At its worst the hate she received seriously affected her mental health, forcing her back onto antidepressants after managing without for two years. “I was just crying all the time,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep and when I did I was having horrible nightmares. I would never hurt myself because of my children but I didn’t want to live.
“I felt like I was such a bad person and wondered what the point in being here was.”
Mrs Whately said she was shocked, adding: “No one should have to put up with this kind of abuse, and the number of signatures her petition has received shows how strongly people feel about this. The government has set up a new hub to tackle online hate crime and I have written to the Home Secretary asking him to make sure it looks into Tattle Life and explaining more than 19,500 people have signed Michelle’s petition.”
Helen McDougal, an administrator on the forum said: “Tattle Life has a zero tolerance policy towards hateful, abusive and threatening content and we take the privacy of social media influencers far more seriously than they do themselves.
“We’re far more stringent with our rules and moderation than any of the big social media companies. We allow commentary and critiques of people who choose to monetise their personal life and put it in the public domain. We encourage people to report any comments that overstep the line as we take all reports very seriously. People who come to post abuse are banned.”