Dodging the trolls

A note on what happens when far-right attacks become personal

I can vividly remember that first pile-on. I was in Dunkirk on a reporting trip, walking along a vast bay, sand grains spiralling around my legs. If I squinted, I could just about make out an undulating strip of land on the horizon beyond. There it was - home - and the destination so many in the camps were desperate to reach.

Ambling towards some fishermen, I spotted a black object in the distance, incongruous with the powder white sand. There, in a swell of saltwater lay a deflated rubber dinghy, stabbed through by the French beach patrols. I walked around it, contemplating those who would have stood where I was standing hours earlier, trying to imagine what they would have thought, and heard, and felt.

I took a picture of it, more for my own memory than anything else. Then, absent-mindedly, regretfully, I posted the image with a stark message about how UK funding was being used. I put my phone away, walked up the sandbank towards my car and drove back to Calais. Hours later, in a smoky beer bar with some friends, I got my phone out to see thousands of notifications. Richard Tice, then the leader of Reform UK, had found the photo and shared it with his hundreds of thousands of fans, launching a pile-on.

Most of the posts were familiar - Home Office stooge, bleeding heart, libtard - but some - the more hate-filled ones - celebrated and galvanised the trolls. Bravo, the French! one read, garnering a thousand likes. Good use of taxpayer’s money! another said. And then one that stopped me cold: Let them drown.

To a certain extent, I expect this kind of vitriol. My beat - UK immigration and asylum - attracts an enormous number of far-right keyboard warriors. But when it gets personal, and the attacks move from online to offline, it can be an uncomfortable place to find yourself.

During a particularly difficult weekend, as I was looking after my sick child, the Knowsley riots took place. Largely orchestrated by far-right, neo-nazi group Patriotic Alternative, a mob of over 500 people gathered outside The Suites hotel where asylum seekers were being housed. Lit fireworks were thrown over the fencing. A police van was set alight. Children as young as thirteen were being arrested for violent disorder.

Meanwhile, I was in contact with a man inside the hotel, and felt compelled to report what he could see, to share the videos and images he was sending me. It wasn’t long before the trolls found me. First, it was messages on Twitter, then other social platforms. Emails started rolling in. Somehow, one of them got hold of my phone number and began trying to reach me by WhatsApp, text, phone. One told me they knew where my son went to nursery. They would, they said, go for him and then ‘fuck you up’.

The riots in the summer put me in mind of all this, and so many other similar online attacks. At the time, I was reading Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet and I underlined a passage in ‘Autumn’, written in the aftermath of the Brexit result.

‘I’m tired of the violence there is and I’m tired of the violence that’s on its way, that’s coming, that hasn’t happened yet,’ the mother of her lead character Elizabeth says. ‘I’m tired of liars… I’m tired of lying governments. I’m tired of people not caring whether they’re being lied to any more.’

From Ali Smith’s ‘Autumn’

Needless to say, I, for one, am not overly bothered about the demise of Twitter, or X, as I never got round to calling it. For a long time - too long - I've had to think about how I use social media, to limit it and to second guess which posts could cause pile-ons. I begrudge having to make certain platforms private, like instagram, where I would love to share my work, but risk making my family a target.

It is, of course, a luxury to be able to have any kind of public presence online. My sources are frequently attacked offline. When I visited Knowsley and went to The Suites hotel to meet the man who had been inside, I had a taste of what life was really like for new arrivals. Harassment on the bus, harassment in the streets. Spitting. Pulling, flicking hair. Seeing all of this made my blood boil. The challenges I’ve faced as a reporter pale into comparison to the everyday aggravations they are up against.

For now, the mass exodus from Twitter/X to Bluesky is a welcome move. Far-right thugs aren’t there yet; neither are the bots. It is a kind of social media utopia for what feels like a limited period. But these things never last very long. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the gremlins return and with it, the vitriol.