Alanah Pearce is an Australian game reviewer, who regularly posts to YouTube and other social media channels. As such, she’s experienced the darker side of online comments, receiving rape threats from strangers. Knowing better than to engage with online trolls directly, she took a different approach. She contacted their mothers.
Alanah commented on Twitter, “Sometimes young boys on Facebook send me rape threats, so I’ve started telling their mothers.”
With some sleuthing she located the guys’ moms by looking on their profiles. Alanah contacted four moms and got a response from one.
She tweeted a screengrab of their conversation, which went like this:
“Hi Anna, I don’t know you, but I was wondering if [blanked-out] is your son?”
“Yes he is. Why?”
“I have never met him before, but he sent me a concerning message to my public Facebook page today that I was wondering if you might be interested in discussing with him.”
*posts screengrab*
“Omg, little shit. I’M SO SORRY. YES I WILL TALK TO HIM!”
Source: Twitter
Her tweet struck a chord with people and has been retweeted tens of thousands of times.
I think Alanah’s approach was brilliant and I hope more of the mom’s she contacted give their sons’ talking too!
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