Owen Jones Urges Media To Stop Labelling Online Trolls As Left-Wing Corbyn Supporters In YouTube Video

Owen Jones Tells Tories To Look At Their Own Record When It Comes To 'Trolls'
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Political commentator Owen Jones has hit out at those who politicise online abuse amidst claims that "left-wing" trolls are representative of the entire Labour party and even Jeremy Corbyn.

"The idea that a bunch of unhinged, frothing at the mouth, Corbynite mobs are descending on social media and bullying anyone who has the tenacity to disagree with their hard left ideology - that is basically the gist of the story at the moment.

"[And] the idea Jeremy Corbyn is somehow responsible for a bunch of people he's never met, seems rather farfetched to me," he said in the YouTube video.

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Owen Jones has hit out at people who politicise online abuse

The Guardian columnist compared the political presence of online threats using the Conservative alleged bullying scandal as an example:

"The reason I find this a little bit distasteful as a narrative in the media at the moment is - Conservative Future - the youth wing of the Conservative party is embroiled in a scandal at the moment.

"The so called 'Tatler Tory" Mark Clarke - and the Conservative Future executive have had to resign because of these bullying claims in which Elliott Johnson a young Conservative tragically killed himself.

"That should be a bigger scandal than it actually is - and yet there is this focus on the idea of the left being this bunch of horrible bullies."

He also called out Tory MP Lucy Allan for adding a death threat to an angry email she'd received from an anti-war constituent:

"I think online abuse is being politically abused at the moment... a little bit. Let me give you an example. There's a Conservative -MP Lucy Allan - and what she did was post on her Facebook page a supposed abusive email she got from - presumably - someone on the left.

"She put at the end that he'd written 'Unless you die' [and] it turns out Lucy Allan added those three words - that constituent never said it and I don't know why this is not more of a scandal."