A female member of the UK Parliament has refused to blame Twitter for a torrent of abuse she has received on the site, instead choosing to publish the comments in a bid to highlight the problem many women in politics face when they use the microblogging channel.
Louise Mensch said much of the abuse was "misogynistic" – but instead of taking Twitter to task, she said the responsibility for moderating their behaviour on the site lay with its users themselves.
She told the Daily Telegraph: “I just wanted to put it (a selection of comments made about here) up there to let people see and I was overwhelmed with the massive response I got on Twitter from everybody saying how much they supported it."
And she later told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It’s not Twitter’s fault … it's the fault of the users. They have to be responsible for what they say."
Mrs Mensch's action came as the Chief Constable of Cumbria police, Stuart Hyde – who also leads the Association of Chief Police Officers' e-crime prevention unit – said people could not simply give free rein to their views on Twitter.
"People need to understand that while this is a social media it’s also a media with responsibilities, and if you are going to act illegally using social media [you should] expect to face the full consequences of the law," he said.
