Leftist bullies are turning Twitter into humourless territory
There have always been nasty, aggressive, and rude people. When I wrote a dating column for a London newspaper in the mid-2000s, I got a death threat from an Islamist which the police took seriously – for mentioning Israel.
But that sort of thing was the outlier. Social media changed all that, and since 2006, when Twitter launched, the true colours, or more charitably put the dark sides of those one would never have suspected of being vitriolic nutjobs, has emerged.
It’s not so surprising when the far right behaves in a threatening and violent manner, but what’s been notable in the last few years is just how loutish the far left become behind a screen.
It’s got so bad even our toughest battlehorses are giving up. Last week saw veteran tweeter and journalist Giles Coren throw in the towel. Coren has never shied away from a fight – indeed, he revels in picking them. But last week, the cost of provoking Corbynites became clear: some of their number turned up at his house to harangue his wife and kids. This followed an article in December in which he made predictions
for 2020, including Corbyn activist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones “getting a peerage in Corbyn’s resignation honours… and chasing young researchers with tight bottoms up and down the corridors all afternoon.” Jones is gay, and this was perceived by Jones and his one million Twitter followers to be homophobic. But, as Coren hurried to point out, he had not known Jones was gay and would never make a homophobic joke – unsurprisingly, to no effect on the now-riled mob.
Terrifying abuse has also been flung at those sharing opinions about transgenderism that deviate from the approved line. Last month JK Rowling was accused of bigotry and transphobia after she tweeted in support of Maya Forstater, a researcher sacked for saying that transgender people cannot change the biological sex they were born with.
I’ll never forget the selfie posted by Cambridge don Mary Beard in 2018 of her face puffy and tearful after PC bullies piled on, and on, after a racially off-tone comment she’d made about the Oxfam scandal in Haiti. No amount of apology was enough, and the alreadyleft wing Beard was virtually hung drawn and quartered. It was grim. Since then Twitter has only become more dogeats-dog: soon only the most vicious will remain.