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Regional news site exposes refugee ‘haters’ after Facebook storm

A local news website has called out “haters” who left offensive comments about refugees on one of its social media channels.

Cornwall Live reported on how a volunteer group in the town of Bude had become one of the earliest adopters of a Home Office scheme help to resettle refugee families.

However, the Trinity Mirror-owned site’s Facebook page then became host to a heated debate over the project, with critics of the plan expressing what Cornwall Live described as “vile” and “hateful” comments.

They included references to the refugees as “smelly rats”, “rapeugees” and “cockroaches” with one commenter urging locals to “lock up your daughters.”

A selection of the offensive messages left on Cornwall Live's Facebook page

A selection of the offensive messages left on Cornwall Live’s Facebook page

Cornwall Live then decided to expose the “trolls” in a follow up story headlined ‘Bude Welcomes Refugees is bringing a Syrian family to Cornwall and these haters need to get over it.”

It read:  “On Tuesday Cornwall Live published the story of a local charity, Bude Welcomes Refugee, which was granted permission to welcome a Syrian family of five after raising tens of thousands of pounds to support all their needs, including housing, schooling and translation.

“The seaside town will be one of the first in the country to help and welcome refugees under a new Home Office scheme. The charity’s chairman, Mary Whibley said she was confident locals would be very welcoming.

“But a host of Facebook trolls who made vile claims and statements – many of whom clearly did not read the article – appear to feel very differently as the Cornwall Live and Cornwall News pages received several hundred comments and reactions.

“Some called the family fleeing the horrors of war liars, “smelly rats”, “rapeugees” and “cockroaches” who will “take over” and said they were “probably Isis” (Islamist terrorist group) and that bringing them here was “suicidal insanity”.

“Some claimed crime rates would rocket in Bude when the innocent family arrived and said people should “lock up your daughters” while others said they would not visit the town again and claimed they had “vile so-called beliefs” and would “start raping and pillaging.”

Cornwall Live’s editorial team said they had “no qualms” about being supportive of efforts to help people fleeing the war-ravaged nation.

Editor Jacqui Merrington said: “This story had nothing to do with wider issues concerning immigration or economic migrants or religion or terrorism and everything to do with local people in a small community simply trying to do a something good for a family in the most desperate of situations.

“We wholeheartedly believe they are doing a positive thing and felt that their actions should not have been subjected to such abusive and offensive comments.

“As such we were prepared to call the haters out on their comments and criticism, some of which was unarguably wrongheaded, misguided, ignorant or worse, not as a political statement or stand, but just as human beings with compassion and empathy.”

6 comments

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  • March 30, 2017 at 10:55 am
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    Sad to say this country, once so tolerant, is now full of racists and little Englanders. They just can’t help themselves, egged on by right wing elements in the media.
    Well done for sorting the faceless heartless trolls, whose lack of brain is matched only by their lack of compassion for anyone but themselves.

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  • March 30, 2017 at 10:55 am
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    Well done Jacqui Merrington. We need more editors like you with the guts to stand up to these haters and expose their ignorance. You represent the vast majority of people in this country whose feelings of compassion and kindness towards strangers are under-represented in the media.

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  • March 30, 2017 at 11:02 am
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    Fine, “call the haters out”, but why not name and shame them? It’s time people became accountable for the bile they spew online. Let’s see what their employers think of their views.

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  • March 30, 2017 at 3:43 pm
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    Ironic that I’m posting it on here, but I can’t overstate my contempt for the majority of people that used to comment on our website. All they did was hurl abuse at the paper and its reporters, yet they – erm – spent all day everyday on it.

    Anonymity lets cowardice flourish, none of them, not a single one, ever , ever came to the office to say anything to anyone’s face.

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  • March 30, 2017 at 4:22 pm
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    @paperboy But was this country really as tolerant as we tend to believe, or have those racists and little Englanders you refer to always been there? Those right wing elements in the media certainly have…

    The big difference today, of course, is that these kind of people now not only have a platform on which to air their odious views, they also have a guaranteed audience – and a potentially massive one at that.

    I honestly believe that the negative side of social media is becoming one of the biggest challenges facing our generation.

    In my book no-one should say anything about anyone else on social media that they wouldn’t be prepared to say to their face down the pub.

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  • March 31, 2017 at 6:54 pm
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    Will and Jeff, just to clarify, we did name them insofar as it was possible to do so. We embedded their comments from Facebook so this included the names and profile pictures from their Facebook accounts. Obviously either or both of these can be fake or non-identifiable.

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