By now no doubt everyone's heard about the death threats against Green MP Sue Bradford. Very, very, deeply uncool.
It's a timely reminder of both the scary side of social media and the vulnerability of those who push unpopular barrows. Many years ago I received a couple of anonymous threats, and more recently when we had some troll trouble some of it got very nasty including physical threats towards me and others writing here.
I can't speak for anyone else but despite the rational part of my brain telling me that it's just talk some level of fear would get to me, which is exactly what the Nasty wants.
I hope Sue is ok, and that she is getting support from her friends and whanau. I admire what she is doing and I would hope that even those who disagree with her would still defend her right to feel (and be) safe.
As a threat was made via twitter it might be nice for Sue to receive some support the same way. You can do this by putting @suebr in your twitter status, plus your message of suppport.
10 comments:
Lets hope the person is found and arrested. I hear the person who they think the threats came from is claiming that his webpage got hacked, and the hacker sent the threats.
I don't think a jury would buy that.
Its fairly common for mp's to recieve threats for what ever reason. This case is certainly not out of the ordinary, except it made the front page of the papers.
Brett - it is possible to demonstrate if someones twitter account had been hacked and used for to make threats. Its quite common for some teenagers to hack into others twitter, bebo etc, accounts and create mischief. So a jury would probably buy that.
The use of the word 'hack' is bullshit. If he didn't send those threats someone guessed his password. That's not hacking.
But let's look at it logically for a second. This is a guy who calls Sue Bradford a whore and all sorts of other lovely names on his website. A website that is dedicated to intimdating and threatening CYF workers.
He's a nut. The fact that he's trying to pretend someone would actually frame him is laughable.
He sent that threat he just didn't think she'd out him. And good on her for doing it. After years of attacking and harrassing CYF workers it's about time his name was out there. He's a scumbag.
I don't think Sue B is particularly worried about these cowards. She could probably take at least five of them at a time if they tried anything. Although of course she'd prefer that to be unnecessary.
I don't buy the "my account got hacked" defense for a second. Not from this guy.
And what is worse, he claims to be a 'pacifist'. What kind of 'pacifist' would run a website condoning and inciting violence against women and children I dont know, but, New Zealanders are strange little people...
Millsy
Is it really common for MPs to receive death threats? Would quite like to see evidence of how prevalent this is.
Anyway, thanks for the heads up, have sent a message of support on Twitter.
I'm not sure it's a daily occurrence, but it does happen every so often:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2579805/Man-allegedly-sought-gun-to-shoot-MP-Smith
I do think we're still in the area of "occasional person with issues" rather than "widespread way of getting your point across".
Threats against MPs happen all the time. CANTA wrote an article many years ago saying some National MPs needed to be wiped out. Reading Salient shows many, especially the far, far left are very angry people.
Lots of bad things happen all the time, that doesn't make them ok or mean we should accept them Anon. Are you saying you are ok with death threats against MPs?
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