Tayla’s approach hides key to abolishing trolls

Tayla Harris’ forceful condemnation of the cowardly trolling over her AFLW photo, which she described as “sexual abuse”, goes some way to bringing social opprobrium into social media, writes Miranda Devine.

Bravo Tayla Harris for demanding social media trolls be held accountable for their poison.

All of 21 years of age and last week she showed more maturity, courage and common sense than people three times her age.

A glorious photograph of the talented AFL footballer kicking a ball in full high leg stride had become the target for nasty sexual trolling when it was posted on the Channel 7 website.

It’s just an accepted part of social media that people hiding behind anonymous identities feel they can behave in foul ways they wouldn’t dare to in real life for fear of social opprobrium.

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Harris’ forceful condemnation of the trolling, which she described as “sexual abuse”, goes some way to bringing social opprobrium into social media.

After Channel 7 temporarily removed the photo to stop the sexually suggestive comments, Harris posted it back on twitter with the caption: “Here’s a pic of me at work… think about this before your derogatory comments, animals.”

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Tayla Harris at work. Piture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

Then she gave a press conference.

“I don’t want to give oxygen to the trolls, but one thing that happens to come to my mind when I saw the comments… I can see in people’s photos they’ve got kids, or they’ve got daughters or women in their photos even, and that is the stuff I’m worried about,” she said.

“We can talk about it as much as we want, but they are not listening. And [the trolls] are probably smiling about it because we’re talking about it.”

But trolls are cowards so the threat of unmasking them will go a long way to tempering their behaviour.

@mirandadevine