Bomb threats made on Twitter to female journalists

A screengrab posted by Grace Dent on Twitter on Wednesday

Police are investigating bomb threats made on Twitter against several female journalists, including Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman.

At 5.50pm on Wednesday Freeman received a tweet from an anonymous user, @98JU98U989, which claimed that a bomb had been placed outside her home and would be detonated at 10.47pm.

She reported it to the Metropolitan police, who told her they were launching an investigation as the threat was an arrestable offence. The police also advised her not to stay at home overnight.

Grace Dent, a columnist for the Independent and former Guardian writer, received the same message as Freeman, which she took a screen grab of. It states: "A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT EXACTLY 10.47PM ON A TIMER AND TRIGGER DESTROYING EVERYTHING."

Although the user's account was suspended, several other women ? including Catherine Mayer, Europe editor of Time magazine, Sara Lang, a social media manager at American non-profit AARP, and Anna Leszkiewicz, editor of Cherwell, Oxford University's independent student newspaper ? subsequently received identical threats.

The bomb threats come just days after Labour MP Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado-Perez, a feminist campaigner, received threats of rape on Twitter.

Police investigating allegations of harassment against the two women on the website have made two arrests: a 25-year-old man in north-east England and a 21-year-old in the Manchester area.

Freeman said the police who interviewed her about the bomb threat asked whether she was friends with Criado-Perez.

Freeman, whose latest column How to use the internet without being a total loser addressed the issue of misogynistic online abuse, said: "I get loads of abuse on Twitter. That I should just 'go back to the kitchen', or someone saying they can't wait until women lose the vote.

"It's not all from men, some are clearly from women, such as "I'm only a feminist because I can't get a boyfriend, or I must be a lesbian because I'm a feminist. I have had some rape threats too. They're always misspelled."

She said the abuse directed against her had become more angry, intense and misogynistic since the threats against Criado-Perez and Creasy.

"Because of the bomb threat this time I called the police. There was that guy arrested for threatening to blow up an airport. If it's illegal to threaten to bomb an airport, it's illegal to threaten to bomb me."

Freeman said the police had also advised anyone who received a similar threat to report it.

Twitter bosses are to be questioned by MPs about complaints that they have failed to do enough to protect women from users posting violent and abusive threats.

Freeman said Twitter needs to take online abuse and threats more seriously and should introduce more robust ways to deal with them.

"Threatening to bomb and rape people is illegal. We need to apply the law in the same way online as we do in the real world. There should be a button to report abuse more easily. Twitter makes money ? they can afford some moderators."

Del Harvey, Twitter's director for trust and safety, admitted it was not the company's policy to automatically report threatening or abusive messages to police.

The website does not hold information to reveal the location a message has been sent from and therefore cannot identify the correct local police force, Harvey said.

She also revealed she had received messages threatening to rape her on "multiple platforms across multiple sites on the internet", but chose not to prosecute.

Harvey told BBC Radio Five Live: "We don't have that much information about our users compared with other platforms.

"We don't always have that information about where the message came from.

"If somebody called you and said, 'I'm going to come over and beat you up', you don't expect the phone company to contact the police. You certainly expect them to work with police."

The Metropolitan police confirmed they had received "allegations relating to bomb threats sent to a number of females on Twitter". No arrest has been made but inquiries continue.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/31/bomb-threats-twitter-journalists

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