Yesterday on Get Safe Online we reported that a man had been arrested on suspicion of posting abusive Tweets to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who was bombarded with messages including rape threats after she successfully lobbied for a woman's face to appear on the new £10 banknote.
This is far from being an isolated incident. Regular visitors to our website will recall cases of anybody from sportspeople to the erstwhile Children's Police Commissioner for Kent getting into trouble for tweeting things they later regretted (or more to the point, were made to regret). This week, however, I've been made aware of two more highly respected (and respectable) women being threatened.
Stella Creasey. the Labour MP for Walthamstow, received some very threatening sexual tweets as a 'consequence' of declaring her support for Ms Criado-Perez. And in a totally unrelated incident, broadcaster and academic Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, was the object of a post calling her a "filthy old slut" and including a sexual comment.
What did both women do in response? In a high-tech version of the age-old and very effective art of naming and shaming, they simply retweeted the posts for all the world to see. Hurrah, say I.
It seems that Twitter has now had to bow to a tsunami of opinion by introducing a button for reporting abuse on its latest iPhone app, with plans to increase the function.
And I'm delighted to see that a cross-party group of MPs led by John Whittingdale is planning on questioning the site's bosses about complaints that they've failed to take enough steps to protect people from such abuse.
Maybe the Twittersphere will become a more pleasant place for everyone with these new measures. Until something else negative comes along.
