Wednesday 31 July 2013

Bomb threats on Twitter made against female journalists


Twitter logo in silhouetteTwitter has come under increasing pressure to make it easier to report abuse on its site

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Police are investigating bomb threats made on social networking site Twitter against several female journalists.
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Time magazine's Catherine Mayer all said they had been threatened.
It follows rape threats made on Twitter against MP Stella Creasy and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez.
Meanwhile, a petition calling on Twitter to do more to prevent online abuse has topped 100,000 signatures.
Anonymous account holders on the social networking site tweeted that bombs had been placed outside the journalists' homes, primed to explode at 22:47 BST.
Doctoral student Kate Maltby also said she had received an identical threat to the three journalists. "Looks like a campaign," she wrote.
'Moderators'
Sara Lang, a social media manager for US-based campaign group AARP, said she too had received a bomb threat, but police in Washington DC had since confirmed that her house was safe.
Freeman, who had earlier published a column entitled "how to use the internet without being a total loser", reported the threats to theMetropolitan police.
The anonymous author of the tweet had "failed to understand my column", she wrote.
An investigation into the threat, which constitutes an arrestable offence, was then launched, a Met spokesman confirmed.
The anonymous accounts have since been suspended, but screen grabs of the tweets have been circulated on the social media site.
Mayer described the threat as "not very credible-sounding".
But the police advised Freeman not to stay at home overnight, the Guardian reported.
The incidents follow separate rape threats on Twitter against Labour MP Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully campaigned to have author Jane Austen depicted on the new £10 note.
Freeman said: "Threatening to bomb and rape people is illegal. We need to apply the law in the same way online as we do in the real world.
"There should be a button to report abuse more easily. Twitter makes millions - they can afford some moderators."

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