Twitter trolls remain out in force targeting journalists and politicians

Media experts say not enough is being done to ban trolls from posting obscene comments.

ABC 7.30's Leigh Sales has spoken out about Twitter trolls who often attack her online. Picture: ABC

Liberal MP Nicolle Flint’s decision to resign from politics — in part because of unrelenting abuse levelled at her on social media — has prompted high-profile journalists to speak out about the dangers of engaging on digital platforms such as Twitter.

Former Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage, who has been the target of online abuse for years, described the conduct of some Twitter users as “vile”.

She received a barrage of abuse last year from online trolls who threatened to kill her and her dog after it was revealed she was being sued in a race row. “If you don’t like it (Twitter), stay off it,” Armytage said. “I only used it in the past for news gathering — right now, I don’t even check it.”

ABC’s managing director David Anderson last week said some of the abuse being hurled online was “quite appalling” and females largely remained the target on Twitter. “We can, of course, support our people as much as we can, it is very hard to prevent that from happening, but we have discouraged people from being on social media,” he said at his first public address of the year in Melbourne on Monday.

Several high-profile ABC reporters including 7.30 host Leigh Sales, the program’s political editor Laura Tingle and multi-­platform journalist Patricia Karvelas have been targeted by online trolls, many of whom operate under pseudonyms.

Chris Kenny, the host of Sky News Australia’s The Kenny Report and a columnist on The Australian, said it was conservative women who often attracted the most online abuse.

“There’s no one treated worse in public debate, especially on Twitter, than right-of-centre women, conservative women,” he said. “They get absolute feral abuse usually from the same crowd that support and laud and supply fan mail for the ABC and their people on Twitter.”

News Corp columnist Miranda Devine, now working at the New York Post, said Twitter was a “sewer in which left-wing voices dominate so conservatives cop most of the abuse”.

“This is my advice to anyone being abused on Twitter,” she said. “If it’s too upsetting, close your account. Otherwise, use your block button prolifically.”

A Twitter spokeswoman said the platform was taking action to stop online abuse.

“Abuse, harassment and hateful conduct have no place on Twitter and we have taken strong steps to proactively address the health of the conversation on our service,” she said. “More than one in two tweets we take action on for abuse are now proactively surfaced using technology rather than relying on reports to Twitter.

Latest Nielsen figures show nine million people in Australia used the platform in December.