Disaster 'I get trolled every day': Ofcom vows to protect women from online hate - Roastie wants the Internet to create a HR department to deal with mean words

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Looking through the comments on her social media posts can be an emotional rollercoaster for Miah Carter.

The 21-year-old influencer posts makeup, body positivity and lip-sync content for her 3.3m followers on TikTok, but says her success online comes with constant abuse.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, Miah says she receives abusive comments "every second, every day… the trolling I get is disgusting".

Miah is sharing her experience as Ofcom releases new draft guidance aiming to improve the experience of women and girls online.

Messages left under Miah's posts include comments encouraging her to take her own life, and personal attacks on her appearance.

"When I first started social media, my following came really quickly," she said. "With that, the hate [comments] came coming in.

"Back then, I didn't understand it. I didn't know how to deal with my emotions. It really affected my mental health and I had suicidal thoughts.

"Now I've learned to ignore the comments and if I can be bothered, I delete them."

Chief executive of Ofcom, Dame Melanie Dawes, has said the draft guidelines issued on Tuesday, will, if tech firms adopt them, be a "proper blueprint" for protecting women and girls online.

The broadcasting watchdog's draft guidance ranges from measures to tackle online misogyny and domestic abuse, to pile-ons and intimate image abuse.

Ofcom has previously issued guidance to tech firms around protections for children online and on dealing with illegal online content.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, Dame Melanie said the organisation would "absolutely" name and shame companies who didn't comply with their guidance, so the public would know which companies were "not taking [user's safety] seriously".

The regulator wants sites and apps to adopt these measures voluntarily in what they call "a safety by design approach". For example, they could adopt "abusability" testing to identify how a service or feature could be exploited by a malicious user.

Rules in the Online Safety Act, due to come into force this year, will compel social media firms to show that they are removing illegal content - such as child sexual abuse, material inciting violence and posts promoting or facilitating suicide. The law also says companies have to protect children from harmful material including pornography.

Content creator Harriet Maynard has also experienced abusive comments, which sometimes escalate into pile-ons - where a large number of people harass a person online.

Her Instagram posts are aimed at a female audience and relate to issues around parenthood and lifestyle content.

Despite having mainly female followers, when a video of Harriet's goes viral, she says she receives "an influx of negative messages, primarily from men".

"I normally don't let it bother me, but when you get a wave of online abuse, it can get you down.

"In a 'normal' workplace, if you were being bullied or harassed, then there'd be an HR department to deal with it accordingly. But for us making content online for a living, there's nothing like that."

Nicole Jacobs, domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, welcomes the draft guidance.

"I'm pleased that Ofcom are stepping up to start the process of providing guidance to tech companies to tackle this," she said. "It's now on these firms to implement these recommendations and ensure that perpetrators can no longer weaponise online platforms for harm.

"By taking meaningful practical action, not only will people be safer online, but it will demonstrate that tech companies are ready to play their part in tackling domestic abuse."

Prof Clare McGlynn, an expert in sexual violence, online abuse and the legal regulation of pornography, says she feels the guidance, which has no legal force, will struggle to make meaningful change.

"Experience shows that tech platforms do the absolute minimum necessary to comply with the law and little more. In the current climate, this is unlikely to change," she said.

"We urgently need to do more by strengthening regulation, making many of these recommendations legally binding. A dedicated Online Safety Commission which prioritises online harms would be a positive next step. "

Some of the suggestions to tech companies from Ofcom include:

"Abusability" testing to identify how a service or feature could be exploited.

User prompts asking people to reconsider before posting harmful or abusive material.

Easier account controls, such as bundling default settings to make it easier for women experiencing pile-ons to protect their accounts.

Removing geolocation by default.

Training moderation teams to deal with online domestic abuse.

While a report from Ofcom shows women are five times more likely to suffer intimate image abuse and are more likely to report being negatively affected by harms experienced online than men, Dame Melanie said the guidance was not about "women versus men or demonising men".

"I think many men are really concerned about this as well. And that wider culture that's going on online, I just don't think it's healthy for anybody.

"The misogyny that's becoming normalised in some parts of the internet, that's not great for boys. It's not going to help them to form proper, strong, healthy relationships as they grow up. So I really hope men will get involved in this too."

Harriet believes some of the suggestions by Ofcom would be ineffectual, such as popups on screen to make users consider if they wish to post abusive comments.

"I don't think these kind of people worry if they're going to offend someone by doing what they're doing. They hide behind their keypads. Complete cowards," she says.

However, she would welcome more protections for women experiencing pile-ons if they were built into social media platforms, adding users should be able to protect themselves from "pure abuse".

Miah feels the guidance may make some difference, if companies choose to follow it.

"I'd like to see tech companies do more," she says, "[Ofcom has] a huge challenge, but real change is possible if they hold platforms accountable.

"Right now, reporting hate often leads nowhere - there needs to be stricter enforcement and actual consequences for harmful behaviour."

In a statement given to the BBC, Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, said: "We remove any language that incites or facilitates serious violence, disable accounts, and work with law enforcement when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.

"We continue to work with women's safety groups to understand the different ways harassment towards women can show up, while improving our technology to find and remove abuse more quickly."

The BBC has also contacted other social media companies, including TikTok and X, for comment.
 
What in earth is ‘lip sync content.’?
Not sure I’d take beauty advice from her either
In a 'normal' workplace, if you were being bullied or harassed, then there'd be an HR department to deal with it accordingly. But for us making content online for a living, there's nothing like that."
Yes and no. If Rajesh or Kevin get handsy in the office then HR can be sicced upon them. If you work in anything public facing, you’re out of luck. As a young ‘un working retail and pubs I had to deal with all sorts of stuff. The pub was less bad. Men who thought it was hilarious to see if they could pick the tiny barmaid up with one hand, a bit of getting handsy which one responded to with whacking them with whatever was to hand and fellow patrons telling them to stop.
Retail was far, far worse. What I now suspect to be AGP males wanking in dresses and underwear in the changing rooms for example. Aggressive people. At least in those days you could call security who would evict them as roughly as possible. These days you’d have to affirm them.
Anyone working a public facing job, man or woman, gets faced with the public in all their glory. Try an accident and emergency shift on a weekend in British city, love, you’ll be begging for the ‘online mean words’ after your third junkie threatens to kill you up close and in person.
 
The 21-year-old influencer posts makeup, body positivity and lip-sync content for her 3.3m followers on TikTok, but says her success online comes with constant abuse.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live, Miah says she receives abusive comments "every second, every day… the trolling I get is disgusting".

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"In a 'normal' workplace, if you were being bullied or harassed, then there'd be an HR department to deal with it accordingly. But for us making content online for a living, there's nothing like that."

That's because what you do isn't a real job and you're a worthless cultural pollutant shitting up the Internet for everyone else.
 
I know the 'bullies are just jelly' line is usually not true, but if I was a teenager and saw this

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and found out she has a boyfriend, fame, money and gets to go to big fashion launches and premieres dressed like she'd been through a car wash, I'd be really fucking annoyed.

I also like the roundabout assertion by a woman that only boys would insult a girl for their appearance.
 
I know the 'bullies are just jelly' line is usually not true, but if I was a teenager and saw this


and found out she has a boyfriend, fame, money and gets to go to big fashion launches and premieres dressed like she'd been through a car wash, I'd be really fucking annoyed.

I also like the roundabout assertion by a woman that only boys would insult a girl for their appearance.
Jesus wept. At least the article image made her look human.

Good ego boost for the teens I suppose.

Anyway. Maybe she should listen to the mean words. It’s sort her fat out and her awful skin complexion, not sure if there’s actually a pretty woman under there but there’s filters for that
 
Just stop going on the internet. Anywhere that people can ejaculate their hatred with no consequences, they will. The internet is just the biggest and most easily accessed school bathroom wall that exists. One of the main forms of content it now hosts is people screaming impotent hatred at others for existing. Just stop fucking using it except to obtain information. No one needs to know about you. No one needs to 'see your content' or have the benefit of your opinion. Everyone who cares about anything you do, say, or are already lives in your house; the rest of the universe does not give a fuck about you, your thoughts, your experiences, your feelings. Accept that, shut the fuck up, and stay off the internet. Leave it to the bots to holler at each other.
 
Let's play along. Say that this "name and shame" thing happens. Oh no! This list says that TikTok doesn't moderate mean words very well. How many TikTok users are just going to stop using TikTok?

We saw exactly how this works when Elon bought Twitter. All the people who swore up and down that they were leaving and never coming back because of Nazis. What happened to them? Almost all of them either left and came right back or didn't leave at all.

Same thing will happen here. But they can feel free to flush their money down the toilet and try it.
 
Everyone who cares about anything you do, say, or are already lives in your house; the rest of the universe does not give a fuck about you, your thoughts, your experiences, your feelings.
Those who mind don’t matter. Those who matter don’t mind. Most us learned by 15 that we are inconsequential, we hopefully matter to our loved ones but that’s about it. There’s something so weird about this tik tok spewing your every thought into the void stuff.
Also: that’s a diabetic neck if ever I saw one.
I think it's the weird shit that Anisa was doing, here is an example from that thread. I'm glad I'm too old for tiktok.
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The internet and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. That’s just embarrassing. People watch this??
 
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