Bbc who is stalking phil

They each have algorithms that offer us content based on things we've posted, liked or watched in the past. But it's difficult to know what they push to each user. She works for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, looking into extremism and disinformation on social media. She has helped journalists before, and advises me on how I can set up the profiles in an ethical and realistic way - only doing what's necessary to test the algorithms.

Barry's accounts were based on multiple accounts that had sent me abuse. Like my trolls, Barry was mainly interested in anti-vax content and conspiracy theories, and followed a small amount of anti-women content. He also posted some abuse on his profile - so that the algorithms could detect from the start he had an account that used abusive language about women. But unlike my trolls, he didn't message any women directly.

Over two weeks, I logged in every couple of days and followed recommendations, posted to Barry's profiles, liked posts and watched videos.

After just a week, the top recommended pages to follow on both Facebook and Instagram were almost all misogynistic. By the end of the experiment, Barry was pushed more and more anti-women content by these sites - a dramatic increase from when the account had been created. Some of this content involved sexual violence, sharing disturbing memes about sex acts, and content condoning rape, harassment and gendered violence.

They also referenced extreme ideologies. It's been linked to several acts of violence, including recent shootings in Plymouth , in the UK. Far from stopping Barry engaging with anti-women content, Facebook and Instagram appear to have promoted it to him. By contrast, there was no anti-women content on TikTok and very little on Twitter. YouTube suggested some videos hostile to women. Facebook, which also owns Instagram, says it tries not to recommend content that breaks its rules and is improving its technology "to find and remove abuse more quickly".

YouTube says it has "strict policies" on hate and "quickly" removes content that breaks its rules. That wasn't the only thing in the experiment that struck me. Barry's main interest was originally conspiracy theories and I had expected him to be inundated with that sort of content at the start.

But he wasn't. Social media sites have come under increasing pressure not to promote misleading information about vaccines and the pandemic. But why hasn't that happened with misogynistic content on Facebook and Instagram? The longer people stay on the platform, the more ads it sells and the more money the tech giant makes. Facebook says "protecting" its community is "more important than maximising profits". It has announced new measures to tackle sexualised hate targeting journalists, politicians and celebrities on its sites.

They found that female reality TV contestants are disproportionately targeted on social media with abuse frequently rooted in misogyny and combined with racism. While the contestants received mostly positive messages, fashion blogger Kaz Kamwi, 26, and year-old medical student Priya Gopaldas, told Panorama they also got some disturbing hate-filled messages.

When you look at me, I am a dark skinned black woman, that's the first thing you see," says Kaz. Ellen Judson, who led the research for Demos and focuses on social media policy, says reality TV is a great place to start looking at online hate because the genre is so popular with people expressing who they like or don't like.

Demos looked at more than 90, online messages about Love Island and Married at First Sight contestants:. Whereas what we saw with men was them being attacked for seemingly not being masculine enough - for being too weak," says Judson.

I wanted to see what impact this kind of abuse is having, so I spoke to politicians and frontline doctors who use social media to do their jobs. Like me they don't mind being criticised but they do mind when it gets personal. Former leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson fears that abuse targeting women online could turn back the clock when it comes to equality offline. There's also concern that online abuse could lead to real world harm.

She's been treating Covid patients during the pandemic and sees using social media as an extension of her duty as a doctor. That means she has frequently posted warnings about the impact of coronavirus - and encouraged her followers to have a Covid vaccine.

It's those tweets in particular that often sparked a wave of misogynistic hate from anti-vaccine activists, not dissimilar to the accounts sending me hate.

But the volume of abuse is much less. If you're a female doctor, it'll be much more visceral, and it will target you as a woman. I've been taking part in a major piece of research for the UN's cultural agency Unesco - which looks at the impact of online hate.

Lead researcher Julie Posetti and her team asked more than women, journalists like me, about their experiences of online hate. They then studied some of the accounts, including mine and that of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Ressa. She's an investigative journalist from the Philippines who gets lots of online abuse and says she wears a bullet-proof vest because she fears being attacked. Twenty per cent of women who responded to the UN's survey, in collaboration with the International Center for Journalists ICFJ , said they had already experienced attacks in real-life, including stalking and physical assault.

Seriously, if you can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen," she said. Head of democratic services Richard Jones said councillors received support and were encouraged to report any abuse. Local Democracy Reporting Service. Image source, BCP Council. Karen Rampton left was stalked and Lesley Dedman said abuse was shouted at meetings.

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