Boxer tracks down Twitter troll in what can only be described as a mindboggle of stupid
Sick Chirpse reports on footballer-turned-boxer Curtis Woodhouse tracking down a Twitter troll. The short of the story is some twonk on Twitter had a go at Woodhouse, and Woodhouse then asked his followers for the troll’s address. There then followed a bit of to-and-fro, with original twonk getting increasingly cagey and boxer bloke showing his grown-up, professional sportsperson demeanour with such lovely outbursts as
i cant wait!! im give him a right pasting!! [sic]
and
right Jimbob im here !!!!! someone tell me what number he lives at, or do I have to knock on every door #itsshowtime [sic]
—that second one, complete with a picture of the street where increasingly frightened twonk lived.
The episode is spreading round Twitter and the web, with people generally on the side of Woodhouse. How great, they argue, that some stupid little troll got what was coming to him. Personally, I find the entire episode despicable and chilling.
I hate Twitter trolls as much as the next person, and I’ve also experienced several runs of prank phone calls, including one lovely soul who’d ring up daily and rant down the phone about what a wanker I was and how everything I do was shit. (Presumably, they weren’t an Apple fan, nor, clearly, a fan of my writing.) But the Twitter mob mentality is worse. If someone’s making a genuine threat, make a complaint to the proper authorities; but if someone’s just being a dick, don’t form a little online posse and have a boxer drive to the troll’s house, to, in the boxer’s own words
give him a right pasting!! [sic]
Sometimes the internet is a thing of pure magic—one of those inventions that is almost as revolutionary as penicillin or the car. But this skirmish also shows that it can be an enabler of the worst of humanity, where bullies bully, and the bullied become just as bad as the aggressors, while an audience looks on, baying for the most explosive outcome. It’s not funny—it’s just sickening.
Although I would never condone physical harm—and the threat of it—I’m quite glad he actually did something. Maybe next time he will think twice about trolling. Of all the people to try, a professional boxer wouldn’t be my first choice.
If you would not say it to the boxer’s face – even as part of a baying crowd – perhaps you should not post it online? Still, there can be no condoning the physical threats or spurring the boxer on to actually do something.
Quite. I don’t disagree some people need to examine their online conduct, but I find the rampant glee about what happened to the troll distasteful and depressing. No-one comes out of this incident looking good to me, yet half the media is saying the guy “got what he deserved”. What if they’d actually met and the boxer had broken his nose or put him in hospital? Mob justice! The Twitter way! Ugh.
Frankly, I think the police should caution the boxer. He appears to have been making fully credible threats of actual bodily harm, complete with travelling to the other guy’s road and asking people to find his house number.
Mind you, if I’d been the guy he was going for I’d have made sure I had witnesses around and then stepped out to say hello. Anything physical and I’d make sure the boxer was sued AND arrested. (But maybe someone who thinks those things through isn’t so likely to be such a dick-like troll in the first place. I like to think so anyway.)