Allegations of sexual assault have been made against former fm Alex Salmond. He strongly denies them. Details are naturally scarce at this stage and it’s the kind of thing that we’d feel pretty crummy commenting on before we know the facts. It wouldn’t sit right, regardless of who was involved. Others obviously feel differently, though, and we feel much better commenting on these people.
The Herald ran a story about some ‘fringe online nationalists’ who were, nuttily enough, calling it all a ‘conspiracy’ but, strangely, they had nothing about the tasteless glee of some Unionists. Twitter was awash with swampy, cretinous, threads full of Rangers and Union Jack avatar accounts very much enjoying something that people don’t normally enjoy.
Any Herald journalist looking at the reaction online cannot have missed the ugly spectacle. But they’re not ‘Cybernats.’ So they don’t count for some reason.
Not Cybernats
Anyone with half a brain or trace of empathy for the people involved would understand that it’s bad enough the allegations might be true without people wishing them so.
Yet predictably, depressingly, there are people openly hoping the allegations are true – with all that entails. Presumably because they hate the man and his former party so much that it disables their sense of judgement, decency and perspective.
These men, they’re all men, are looking forward to a sexual assault story developing and the serious matter of a trial as if it’s a form of abstract entertainment. There’s got to be a worry for the process in such an environment.
Anyway, for posterity, the following is an illustration of the kind of things Unionists were posting on twitter as the story broke (apologies in advance for the screenshotted grimness below).
Taken from just three threads, it’s a tiny sample, (there’s worse):
Despite the trolling, the people involved will have their day in court. But in the meantime, signaled by a prodigious use of childish gifs and emojis grown men will eat popcorn, cry laugh, wave Union Jacks and turn twitter into a moronic sewer, again. Will they jeopardise the chances of a fair trial with some of their comments and claims? Will they ever get a life.
