Thousands defend Top Gear producer punched by Clarkson
- Published
Jeremy Clarkson: "I wish people would leave Ois alone cos none of this is his fault"
After a few Twitter users threw abuse at the producer punched by Jeremy Clarkson, thousands wrote in support of Oisin Tymon.
It was a shocking story picked up by media, external all over, external the world, external - after the decision to sack Jeremy Clarkson as the presenter of Top Gear, the producer on the wrong end of Clarkson's fist got more abuse directed at him by strangers on Twitter.
"If you want to lose faith in humanity I'd suggest searching #OisinTymon to read all of the vile trolling against a man assaulted at work," one tweet read, external.
The only problem is, that's not the whole story. Yes it's true that dozens of people - most with fewer than 100 followers - tweeted death threats and other vile abuse. But BBC Trending found that most of the more than 4,500 tweets - including the most influential and retweeted ones - under the #OisinTymon hashtag, external were decrying the trolling and/or sticking up for the Top Gear producer. Many of the tweets were calling out the abuse - and at the same time adding to the hashtag's numbers:
We tweeted several of the people who issued threats asking them for explanations, although several of the accounts and threatening tweets had been deleted. Predictably nobody stepped forward to defend their messages. And a few of the tweets that seemed to be abuse were actually meant to mock the trolls. One user, @kagjerde, external, said that his tweet "Let's have #OisinTymon shot" was satire. "I certainly don't want him shot," he told Trending. Another user said his tweet was "a simple joke." "No one deserves to be punched for an unprovoked reason," said @colinmoisson, external.
In a very brief statement to reporters Thursday, Clarkson himself said: "I wish people would leave Ois alone, because none of this is his fault."
Blog by Mike Wendling, external
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