At the Cheltenham Science Festival, Gloucestershire, Phillips discussed how social media could be reclaimed from people using the platforms to hurl abuse at others. This practice is popularly referred to as “trolling” (a term which originally had a different, less insidious meaning).
Phillips has been subjected to extensive abuse on Twitter and other platforms; she described having received 600 rape threats in a single evening and being threatened with violence every day to the point that she stopped counting the incidents. As a left-of-centre woman politician who frequently speaks out on issues of social justice, Phillips is among the most popular targets for trolls in the UK and has been targeted by trolls from the left and right.
If you speak as a feminist, she said: “You will suffer a huge amount of internet trolling”. While she was able to treat the abuse as “water off a duck’s back”, she said that this behaviour could have a harmful effect on democracy...