Source : the age
Liberal MP Scott Buchholz has taken aim at online trolls who leave fatphobic comments on his social media, questioning how those who hurl abuse online treat their partners and children in real life.
In a post on Instagram, Buchholz read out a slew of comments that have been left under his posts, some featuring a pig emoji.
“Too long at the trough,” reads one. “Did you eat Scott Morrison?” says another.
“More chins than a Chinese phone book.”
Across the political aisle, Labor MP Matt Smith also challenged “gutless cowards” who threatened female MPs online. In a speech to the House of Representatives, Smith urged men to speak up if they witnessed gendered abuse.
In a week when political debate was dominated by Labor’s digital duty of care legislation, which is demanding tech giants allow Australians to opt out of algorithms that push harmful content, Buchholz took a different approach and urged Australians to check in on those around them in honour of mental health campaign R U OK? Day.
“Check in on the authors of this rubbish – see how they’re going,” he said in a video posted on Instagram.
“I don’t know any of them. But if they’re prepared to write this crap about someone they’ve never met, I can only imagine what they’re saying to the people who they live with, how they’re treating their wives, how they’re treating their kids, how they’re speaking to their peers, so clearly coming from a security deficit.”
Smith on Thursday also recited a string of vitriolic comments that had been directed at government, opposition and crossbench women online.
“Silly little girls, you belong at home,” he quoted. “Hang your head in shame, f-wit penis taker … Get yourself a rope, you effing traitor. Kill yourself before someone else does.”
Smith urged Australian men to pull each other up if they witnessed gendered abuse.
“[The recipients of these messages] are our colleagues, and … our friends. My social media doesn’t read like that. These comments are made by gutless cowards who weaponise gender to bully and threaten,” the far north Queensland MP said.
“When men allow this to happen, it allows other men to go further. But there are good men, and it takes just one good man to call out these cyber warriors. It takes just one good man to tell a mate that he is heading down a dark path. It takes one good man to break intergenerational cycle of violence and trauma.
“So today, I ask the men of this place and the men of Australia to please stand up and be that one good man.”
MPs are increasingly speaking out about online abuse, with both major parties conceding more needs to be done to protect children from harmful content being proliferated on social media.
The Coalition announced on Thursday it would not support Labor’s digital duty of care, framing the proposed laws as a censorship attempt and raising concerns over the powers granted to the minister to include new harms.
Misogynistic content has been put in the spotlight after consent advocate Chanel Contos urged the government to better protect young boys from being sucked into the online manosphere, and following a string of high-profile sexual assault cases around the country.
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Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
