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LABOUR SENATOR LORRAINE Higgins has deleted her professional Facebook page after being subjected to a “tirade of abuse”.
Higgins told TheJournal.ie that she decided to delete the page after being called a ‘c**t’ and told she should have been aborted. She also received death threats.
During her unsuccessful European election campaign, Higgins was told she would be “hatcheted in the face”.
The Galway-based Senator said that she initially tried to “brush off” the abuse, telling herself ‘This comes with the territory, you have to get on with it’. However, she took action after her family became upset when the level of threats increased.
Higgins stressed that “for the most part” the people who engaged with her page were “decent” but said she had to take action when the volume of trolling targeting her and her supporters continued to increase.
I asked myself: ‘Do I really need to look at it first thing in the morning?’
Higgins, a qualified barrister, said that she has almost completed a new cyber bullying Bill that proposes more serious punishments for online trolls.
She noted that she has always had an interest in cyber bullying but became more involved in the area when victims contacted her after she was bullied herself.
The Senator said that having a debate online is fine but “trying to degrade me and humiliate me is not the way to do it”.
I’m not talking about people expressing their opinion, I’m talking about direct threats.
There has to be deterrent and sanctions for people.
Higgins stated that if the harassment had taken place in public, the perpetrators would have been arrested.
She added that when she contacted the people who had threatened her directly, they were “cowardly” and didn’t want to talk.
Legal framework
In late 2013, the then Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte set up the Internet Content Governance Advisory Group to report to him on a range of issues related to online content.
The group made a range of recommendations in June 2014, including that the Communications Regulation Act be amended to include ‘electronic communications’ deemed “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing”. An implementation group was set up by the Government in July and will report back by the end of the year.
At present, the Law Reform Commission is also reviewing online-related issues such as cyber bullying.
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Name them. I bet there’s a few there either
A. Related to someone
B. Party hacks
C. Incompetents who failed miserably everywhere else.
D. Someone with 3 state pension already
I heard there are bondholders in it also
The legend Gerald Fleming is in the pic – giving the V sign to camera – He knows the sea and wind and arrows and fronts and stuff. Wink. Goodnight.
Gerard Fleming & Co are using the equipment that Michael Fish was using back in 1987
Give them time the floods only started a month ago
They are a bit late coming together at this point. It is a pity we have a habit of been re active rather than pro acrive.
Minister Hayes during the week as an example thinking he great announcing better protection against floods. Hello minister nothing has changed in the ladt few hundred yeara all the places that flooded always were prone to floods.
What is the national emergency group anyway? ????….. No idea. .. Never heard of them but probably a shower of overpayed, overindulged “experts” feeding at the national troff
I may be wrong but I’ve yet to see any Civil Defence or Army Reserves out helping!
Civil defence were deployed in Cork City last night, including river rescue units.
Defence forces troops were out in limerick the other day as was the civil defence
Civil defence are deployed at a local level. My mother volunteers with them and they’ve been called out on various occasion throughout the year for flooding etc.
They don’t get nearly enough credit. Majority of them my mam works with are volunteers.
Don’t mind sitting around talking about what might happen. Go to Holland and ask the Dutch how they dealt with coastal erosion and flooding…take a shortcut and ask somebody who has already dealt with the problem and has the solution…saves money …gets results faster
I smell oodles of overtime here.
I’d say the expenses are pretty good as well.
They will reconvene in the summer
What summer?
A talking shop…..
god help us if we do get a real natural disaster. There isn’t one person in kildare street with leadershio skills.
No help from the army in clonmel as shatter closed the army barracks and posted the soldiers to kilkenny Bks.just to keep big mouth Hogan happy .
Rumour has it that they reckon stricter internet controls and more pylons will greatly reduce the number of floods we are experiencing.
The piss and wind brigade!
The response, or rather lack of, by the Irish authorities to the continued bad weather and flooding is severely lacking.
A few sandbags isn’t going to be any good in situations like this and measures that will divert floodwaters and limit damage will need to be taken.
Another example of the complete lack of response is that the main online Irish data on flooding is on the OPW website and hasn’t been updated since 2009.
There is no attempt to crowdsource flooding data in realtime, a methodology which has been successfully used in other countries.
Is it not a bit illogical to have the National Emergency Coordination Centre right in the centre of Dublin? If the emergency were anything besides weather, the centre of the capital might not be the best place to be.
It’s about time national fire ambulance. Service. Mr sean hogan against this if look at fire service some refuse to Ture out flooding.
Alot of county’s, I’d say most, (retained anyways), don’t turn out to flooding. It’s crazy. They’d rather send the civil defence cos it’s free. I’d love to see the chaos in the country if the gardai was run like the fire service. In this country they under-react to everything, and when something goes tits up they cover there arses till it’s forgotten about.
Irelands Justice League?
Nothing
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