Caroline Flack passed away recently, many people believe because of the pressure of online trolls targeting her due to her relationship with her ex boyfriend.
Social media companies must take action, we are losing lives because of trolls. I believe like many others, if you want a social media account, it needs to be made mandatory to upload a government issued ID, this way that person can be found and prosecuted. We will see huge reductions to cyber bullying, we know that's common knowledge. Who is that stupid to risk losing a relationship, their job or even have a criminal record?
If you want a match ticket for your football club, you must wear a photograph ID worn with a unique code (similar to coaching staff & press at major tournaments like the Euros or the World Cup) so fans can be caught easier in the event of anyone being racist or out to cause trouble. It's an extreme measure to take but the way racism has been the past 18 months in the UK, it would soon cut that down to rare occasions an incident may occur.
Myself being the head of a 'fan lead' brand receives hate, but I'm way past the point of caring. However it use to get to me, a couple of years a go I'd search for myself over social media looking to see what people wrote about me, but because I became so use to it, I looked at it as a positive. I started to heavily produce better quality of videos, took people on board who are nuts about Newcastle United and focused on growing and proving the trolls wrong. Fast forward two years and I see them as adverts, they promote Newcastle Fans TV with out even realising we're picking up followers from them. You have to channel the positives from haters.
Even to this day, a podcast group with a big following on a social media account, can't resist a pop at me or NFTV at the very minimum once a week, the easiest thing to do is bite back or place all of his (the person who runs the acccounts) negativity on to a video, trust me I've considered this loads but from what I've learned, he's advertising our brand to over 21,000 people so I can't complain. What's more ironic about this is he recently admitted he suffers from mental health issues, which is a brave thing to do, he of all people should know that you don't know how your words can influence and hurt others, imagine if the roles were reversed, but I'm better than to steep that low.
Be kind to others, you just don't know what's happening to people inside their head.