David Penberthy: Bullying culture is entrenched across social media and is finally being exposed

There’s a huge leap between the laughable woe-is-me stylings of a pampered QC and the reprehensible conduct directed at Erin Molan.

With the horror of Ukraine and the continuing human toll from the global pandemic, it’s easy to lose sight of just how much difficulty Julian Burnside QC had getting a restaurant meal during the Adelaide Festival this week.

The millionaire barrister from the super-posh Melbourne suburb of Kooyong endured a hellish time of it on a visit to South Australia this week, where he had hoped to take in the cultural sights and sounds of Writers Week as well as catching some Fringe and Festival shows.

Little did he know the horror that lay in store.

Sunday night was particularly hard. “We were booked for dinner tonight at Shobosho in Adelaide and I just got a message cancelling our reservation. I’ll never book there again.”

Worse was yet to come.

“The Adelaide Festival is the best in Australia but the service is appalling,” he wrote on Tuesday after enduring another hospitality-related insult.

“Adelaide needs to understand that an increase in visitor numbers needs an increase in employee numbers,” he wrote.

Melbourne lawyer Julian Burnside. Picture: Ian Currie

And then this, when he faced similarly appalling treatment trying to get a cappuccino.

“At the Art Gallery of South Australia. A great place for lunch, getting a coffee can take an hour …”

I am not sure if there is some kind of support group that has been established for Mr Burnside or whether the South Australian government has arranged an ex-gratia payment to compensate for his suffering.

As a noted human rights lawyer, revered by his adherents as a national living treasurer, it is refreshing to see he has in no way lost any sense of perspective.

His status as an eminent jurist has afforded him a real insight into what suffering looks like. If you thought Rwanda was bad, try getting a coffee in Adelaide.

The Burnside tweets – I stress they are not from a parody account – provide compelling insight into human behaviour in the world of social media.

Adelaide Writers Week is the best writers’ event in Australia

— Julian Burnside (@JulianBurnside) March 6, 2022

I got a very nice call from Shobosho this morning : the reason for yesterday’s cancellation was a technical problem concerning ventilation at the restaurant

— Julian Burnside (@JulianBurnside) March 7, 2022

On Twitter, on Facebook, in the comments sections of news sites and chat rooms, there is no other set of eyes, no other pair of hands that sift through comments prior to publication. These comments come via a direct line from within the human brain. No other questions are considered before the opinion is spouted forth.

Questions such as, I am unfairly maligning a restaurant that has been smashed by Covid restrictions for two years, and which is probably still under onerous social distancing rules that limit its ability to honour all bookings?

Or more fundamental questions that go to the perception of your character. Such as: If I write this, will I sound like a massive wanker?

The case of Shobosho is an interesting one, as it turns out the poor restaurant had experienced a malfunction with one of its exhaust fans on Sunday, which it apologetically explained to Mr Burnside after he criticised the establishment on Twitter and flagged his intention to shun it for evermore.

Because the restaurant cooks over open flames, the proprietors kindly decided that it was best not to incinerate guests such as Mr Burnside.

This seems a cautious and welcome move on their part. But in the nuance-free, let-it-rip world of Twitter, it’s best to go hard first and ask questions later, or simply not to ask questions at all. The kind of treatment this restaurant sustained from Burnside points to a bullying culture that is now entrenched across social media, and is finally being properly exposed.

Sports journalist Erin Molan revealed this week the relentless online bullying and harassment she suffered while working in the media covering rugby league was the key reason that she stepped away from the sport.

The 39-year-old gave evidence on Thursday at a public hearing in Canberra into the Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill and said the “vile” attacks she received during her time on the show, including threats to rape her two-year-old daughter, caused her immense pain.

“The trolling element and some of the attacks that I have been subjected to for a long time are probably one of the big contributors in me walking away from rugby league, because to be honest I could either choose to be subjected to that or to be a present mother to my daughter,” she said.

“You get to the stage where you actually just can’t do it anymore and I don’t think there’s any shame in that.”

Sydney sports journalist Erin Molan. Picture: Toby Zerna

Clearly there is a huge leap between the laughable woe-is-me stylings of a pampered Melbourne QC and this kind of reprehensible conduct directed at a mild-mannered female sports journalist.

But the entire vibe of social media is to enable people to act at their worst, often through anonymity, in a medium that demands immediacy and abhors self-reflection. The promise inherent in the word “social” is that social media will make the world a more sociable place, yet so often the reverse seems to be true.

Whether it’s the poor owners of a great restaurant seeing their good name dragged through the mud, after suffering two years of shocking financial losses, or a young female journo being trolled to the point of her resignation, the entire spectrum of anti-social behaviour is enabled around the clock in this digital age.

Burnside did at least delete the tweet after the restaurant contacted him. There was no apology for what he originally said about them though.

I will give the last word to Adelaide’s own Nick Schadegg, a prolific and profane tweeter of great hilarity, who had this to say in reply to the eminent QC’s impromptu restaurant review: “We’ve got barrels for people like you in South Australia.”