Reblogged from the English & Media Centre’s emagazine.
If we were to look only at the media, it would be easy to think that online abuse only started recently. From about 2010 onwards, we find a continually increasing number of stories of celebrities receiving online abuse. However, the perspective that the media provides can give a fairly skewed impression of what’s actually happening. Firstly, famous people are not the only ones to suffer antisocial online behaviour – just about anyone can find themselves on the receiving end of hurtful, offensive, and threatening messages. Secondly, internet abuse has been around only a little while less than the internet itself – around forty years. And thirdly, there is a surprising number of antisocial online behaviours, ranging from the mildly annoying through to the extremely dangerous. To start with this last point first, it’s worth knowing about just a few of the types of antisocial online behaviour, but for reasons of space, we’ll cover just seven. Continue reading