Trolled Jewish MP Luciana Berger calls for Twitter to act swifter in cases of online abuse

Monday, 10 November 2014 14:59

A Jewish MP, who was barraged with anti-Semitic abuse on Twitter, has called for the social media network to amend its abuse safeguards to prevent such hate campaigns from being perpetrated in future.

Police made ten arrests outside Luciana Berger, the MP of Liverpool Wavertree's office, on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to cause criminal damage.


The far-right activists were supporting a campaign of abuse against the MP. These individuals have been released on bail until February 2015, according to the Sunday Times.

Berger, who has over 32,000 followers on the site, received 1,000 “vile” messages, including a picture of her head imposed upon an Autswitz prisoner.


Another, from Garron Helm, 21, whose arrest allegedly sparked the campaign, saw a yellow star placed upon the MP’s head supported with the hashtag ‘#Hitlerwasright’.

Following the slew of arrests, Berger called for Twitter to clamp down on trolls, she told the Sunday Times that it was “deeply regrettable that Twitter continues to host graphic, abusive, anti-Semitic messages long after they first appear".

“It is extremely worrying that they do not have the processes in place to deal with such abuse in the swift and effective manner that we expect from an online platform of such size and reach.”

The Twitter campaign crossed the Atlantic with Andrew Anglin's Ohio-based fascist website, the Daily Stormer, urging further abuse against the “Jewess Berger”.

He dubbed his call to action a "method of guerilla resistance after the Jewess had a young man named Garron Helm imprisoned for identifying her as a Jew.”

Berger's criticism of the site comes after a man was jailed for 18 months for repeated abuse towards Labour MP Stella Creasy in September.

Last modified on Monday, 10 November 2014 15:11