Madeleine McCann's Parents targeted by internet trolls - The Times

is that not a threat to life,  how much more threatening to life than wanting someone dead could be.

There is no excuse for anyone making threats against the McCanns. There is already a law against it and people, threatening to 'get' them with nasty 'I know where you live and I'm coming for you' online mail deserve to be prosecuted.

Trouble is several things are being confused and conflated. Disagreement with the official line on the case and objecting to the way the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance is being handled, or paid for, or complaining about other hypotheses than abduction for her being missing not being properly considered, and chewing them over in discussion online are completely fair!!! They have NOTHING to do with 'hate' for Madeleine's parents at all! Disagreement and fair discussion is being lumped together with threatening behaviour! (I don't know about Twitter or Facebook as I'm not a member of either) It seems decently moderated
discussion forums may be getting tarred with the same brush!

kitti wrote:Bruntys sky interviews regarding the FULL DNA etc are all over Facebook...oh dear.....he's a 'troll'

That much is clear, brunt is a troll. A nasty troll.

And so is UK press & media, they have been trolling PT, PJ and Amaral since years. Nasty lot. Just plain nasty. I despise UK's MSM. They are just plain nasty.

Maybe someone will put me right on this... I thought a troll was someone who, just for the hell of it, disrupted an online discussion thread and tried to cause trouble between other posters. It seems it now means someone making threats!

The idiots who posted vile stuff attacking Caroline wossname, a feminist writer who merely wanted to get a woman's picture rather than yet another man's onto the back of a pound note, was plagued by people threatening to kill her in various nasty ways. They were referred to as trolls in Sky's debate. Anyway, the law dealt with them. Why didn't they challenge her arguments rather than say they were going to cut her throat or whatever. Perhaps they couldn't do so as they had room temperature IQs as do many who resort to violence or threaten it. Trolls is now the word for such people, obviously.

My worry is that the legitimate stopping of and prosecuting people who threaten others, is somehow being linked to disagreement and discussion... the curtailment of reasoned free speech, indeed... on websites and forums.

Wikipedia wrote:In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4]

This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[5][6]

I can't see where it says "a troll is a person who has a difference of opinion, or questions another person's version of events".

Lets just call it what it is - using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause a person alarm, harassment or distress. or to fear for their lives.

In the old days it was done via anonymous letters sent in the post, or over the telephone - but the means of catching the person responsible was easy as it was so easily traceable.

Then along came the Internet and social media and it was easier to do, simple as.

But I agree with Comprehenda - the posters who make obvious threats should not be linked to the posters who merely post a viewpoint.

And the McCanns themselves should refrain from writing blogs and books in which they use abusive language as well because, at the end of the day, two wrongs do not make a right.

great post http://cristobell.blogspot.co.uk/

Looks like it's been a disaster @AskBrunt  

Wasn't just!!!

Nick Fox ‏@nicholas_net 10m10 minutes ago

#AskBrunt An appeal has gone out for the safe return of Martin Brunt, 59, who seems to have been abducted from Praia de Twitter.

fred wrote:Looks like it's been a disaster @AskBrunt  

Martin Brunt's twitter timeline reads like a catastrophe.  How much longer will he be employed by Murdoch?

Just noticed the Daily Mail article has been up-dated as of  14:48 GMT  2 October, 2014.  "sweepyface" is pictured but not identified by name as one of the "trolls".  Comments still not allowed.

Thanks Iris (page 2) I only knew of the first meaning of troll ... not its more recent extension to online harrassment
(ie threatening behaviour online).

chrissie wrote:Nick Fox ‏@nicholas_net 10m10 minutes ago

#AskBrunt An appeal has gone out for the safe return of Martin Brunt, 59, who seems to have been abducted from Praia de Twitter.

 

OMG! It was awful!! I nearly felt sorry for him!!
He barely answered anyone!!

In 30 minutes exactly, he answered 13 questions and then scuttled off!

Iris wrote:In 30 minutes exactly, he answered 13 questions and then scuttled off!

And when asked how did he get a name and address from a anonymous twitter user..he said 'legal journalistic way' or something...just like Brooks and Coulson didn't know that phone hacking is illegal...journo La-La-Land or just plain lies?

omg this has so backfired - bit of karma on Brunty there methinks.

I've said it so many times - The Streisand Effect.

Every time TM create a non-story like this with their gimps in the media, loads more people start exploring the net and find all the stuff the hacks won't tell them about.

Another own goal, but they never, ever learn ...

I would like to know what was said when she invited him in...hope she taped it.


Why did they pick a well educated women with a nice car and home instead off all the nasty trolls they could off picked on from a less well off area

almostgothic wrote:I've said it so many times - The Streisand Effect.

Every time TM create a non-story like this with their gimps in the media, loads more people start exploring the net and find all the stuff the hacks won't tell them about.

Another own goal, but they never, ever learn ...

That's it exactly - more and more people will be looking into what this brouhaha is really all about.  Hopefully it will lead them to the official files and more eyes will be opened.

kitti wrote:I would like to know what was said when she invited him in...hope she taped it.


Why did they pick a well educated women with a nice car and home instead off all the nasty trolls they could off picked  on from a less well off area

I wouldn't be so sure they picked on her deliberately; that they already knew what class of woman she was, but class shouldn't come into it anyway, should it? But it is all the more shocking, to some people perhaps, that a well dressed, well groomed woman in a nice area should be spending her time doing this. I have no idea the type of things she has tweeted so cannot comment but she doesn't immediately strike me as a vindictive type of person. Have any of her tweets been made public in the past? She now has to hold her head up amongst her neighbours and friends, now that she has been 'outed'.

I have a problem with outing people in this way. It seems to be a trend on TV. Catch people by surprise in the street and confront them in public. Push a camera into their faces so everyone knows who they are. If a TV journalist has got information about someone, take it to the Police or take them to Court yourself, even if its a Civil Court; it must cost almost as much to expose them on TV, but I guess at the end of the day it makes for good TV ratings.

I was always told to do things in private - take people to one side rather than show them up in front of a crowd. Has it been proven she has committed any sort of a crime yet? Its trial by TV, it gives TV too much power and I am not comfortable with it.

Summers and Swan boasted on Twitter about outing the 'leaders' of the 'campaign to smother the facts' in the book.
Despicable behaviour.

And after several days of silence, they're back today crowing on Twitter.
Timing, eh?

are they crowing because their book is a best seller No.

Not long ago there was discussion about whether the McCanns would emigrate before the twins reach high school.  I've been thinking perhaps they will use the dangerous trolls as the reason they 'have' to leave the country.