Leeds influencers speak out about toxic online abuse as part of Call It Out campaign

For Leeds 'influencers’ - ordinary people from our city who have built careers by sharing content on social media - such baseless abuse is a daily occurrence.

They have found themselves at the mercy of faceless trolls who criticise their every move, make up rumours about them and even send them death threats.

Luke Clifton-Williams (@StanleyDru), from Bramley, is a content creator, who shared his experience with the Yorkshire Evening Post as part of our Call It Out campaign to tackle abuse online.

He has experienced homophobic abuse, cruel comments about his appearance, aggressive ‘pile ons’ and even been told to take his own life.

Luke said: “There was a woman who went viral in the news for calling influencers ‘parasites’ and she was laughing about it on her Instagram - ironically to her 55,000 followers. I left a comment saying that what she was doing was quite upsetting and the next thing I knew her followers were flooding my account with abuse.

“One woman actually sent me a message telling me to hang myself. I was on the phone to my mum at the time and she got really upset.

“I shared the person's comment and instead of being ashamed they messaged again to say ‘please tell your next of kin to inform me when you've done it.’

“I’m lucky that I have a thick skin but a lot of people are dealing with mental health issues and someone being told to get rid of themselves could be really damaging.”

He has also experienced trolling on TikTok but says the type of abuse is very different.

Luke said: “The audience on TikTok are a lot younger and the difference is that when something goes viral it is completely and utterly out of your control.

“The comments don’t seem to be monitored so people can say whatever they want.

“A lot of the comments are physical attacks on my appearance or talking about my sexuality.

"One video I posted, people commented 'what’s with the Village People moustache?' and 'How to be a paedophile'.

“But it is part of the process. One of my videos has been seen by half a million people and I can’t expect all of those people to appreciate me or like what I am doing. It is part and parcel of the job.”

Another influencer from the area, who wished to remain anonymous due to the scale of the abuse, told the Yorkshire Evening Post that hate messages are now a daily occurrence for them.

As well as comments and messages, the blogger has also discovered that there is a forum dedicated to them, in which people share gossip, rumours and cruel comments.

The blogger said: “They say everything you could possibly imagine. On Monday, I'm too fat, but I'm on Tuesday, I’m too skinny. It's all just one big contradiction.

“I think I can handle criticism about how ugly they think I am but they do things like reporting me to the Advertising Standards Authority, criticising my family and tracking down where I live.”

They added: “It is their mission to make up things about me and even if what I have shared is really mundane, they still find a way to spend hours gossiping about what it means.

“These are real adult women in their 30s with children and high flying jobs but they spend all day on these hate forums picking apart everything I do - even though I am a total stranger to them.

“These people say I’m an absolute nobody but they spend their day talking about me. I’m happy to be a nobody.”

She called on social media platforms to do more, adding: “The way that I get through is to tell myself that these people must be miserable. No happy person sits and does this. There's something not right about their own life.

I would like to see Google shut these websites down although I am sure they would be quick to find a new place to hide.

“I've seen people talk about having to verify your social media by uploading a picture of their driving license or passport and I actually think that's a good way to stop it. It would hold people accountable for their words.”

Luke added: “There's no reason people write unkind things other than because they're probably unhappy with themselves.

“I get to an extent that if you put yourself in a spotlight, you have to accept the good and the bad but the thought process seems to be that you deserve it because you've put yourself out there.

“Influencers have friends and family who love us and it is not right for people to feel it is okay to tell people to kill themselves.

“I know I don’t have any protection when it comes to social media.

“I think there needs to be a team of actual human beings who deal with this sort of abuse.”

The Yorkshire Evening Post's Call It Out campaign is sharing real life experiences of abusive online behaviour and asking our readers to help play their part in reporting it to account admins, social media platforms and, where needed, the police.

The Samaritans can be contacted free at any time of day or night, call 116123 or email [email protected].