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kirsty-boden-300x174Not more #bloodycyclists: Social media intern slammed for 'asking to be hit' tweet
An intern working in social media caused a slew of angry responses and a ticking off from her firm after posting a tweet threatening to run down cyclists who didn’t use cycle lanes.
Kirsty Boden tweeted: “Cyclists that ride on the road rather than the perfectly good cycle lanes are asking to be hit. By me. Will take great pleasure in doing so.”
85 people retweeted it before she took it down and posted “My deepest apologies for what I’ve said as well as to those that have been offended by my comments.”
She made her account private and renamed it, but her firm, White Hat Media, criticised her ‘poor judgement’.
One Twitter user, Shotokancyclist, responded: “You're a disgrace. My brother was hit by a van while he was cycling today. Probably by someone like you.”
Another, Rpb Hayden, said: “Not offended, just shocked at the selfishness and lack of understanding. Have you ever even tried to use a cycle lane?”
White Hat Media told the Brighton and Hove News: “We are aware of a tweet that one of our interns has sent featuring a remark about cyclists that clearly and justifiably offended many people.
“While the content of this tweet or any other tweets sent from the personal social media accounts of our employees are in no way representative of the views of the company or its staff, it is quite clear that this tweet was extremely ill-informed and made with very poor judgement.
“We have requested that the employee in question remove the offending tweet so that the hurt and offence it has caused can be limited as much as possible.
“While we pride ourselves on the work with social media and understanding the many nuances of online etiquette, we appreciate that this has been a severe lapse in the otherwise good online conduct of one of our employees.
“In light of this occurrence, we can assure you all that this matter is being taken with the utmost seriousness that it deserves.
“We would like to make it completely clear that White Hat Media has cyclists among its own staff, including its directors, and does not condone the contents of the message in any way whatsoever and can assure everyone that cyclists are held in very high regard by the company and its employees.”
Last year we reported how Emma Way, the motorist who tweeted about having knocked a cyclist from his bike, was found guilty of failing to stop after an accident and failure to report an accident, but she cleared of a third count relating to careless driving.
Way was fined £300, had her driving licence endorsed with 7 penalty points and had to pay £337 in costs.
Shortly after the incident in Rockland, Norfolk on Sunday 19 May which left cyclist Toby Hockley with minor injuries, Way posted a tweet on the social network that read: “Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier – I have right of way he doesn't even pay road tax!" together with the hashtag, #bloodycyclists.
The 21-year-old was charged with careless driving, failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident.
Latest Comments
- wtjs 1 hour 55 min ago
You didn't mention The Scottish Dodge, whereby if, by witchcraft, you manage to force your HD video upon the reluctant Scottish Police and they...
- mdavidford 2 hours 32 min ago
Not particularly sure that follows.
- mdavidford 2 hours 51 min ago
There's one that's always lurking outside our house at night.
- mdavidford 3 hours 9 min ago
When these were designed in to the new development near us the excuse was 'well if we didn't it would be impossible to get a rubbish truck in to...
- Rendel Harris 4 hours 7 min ago
I should get onto the Guinness Book of Records people then, as they have the world record slowest heart rate for a healthy person down as 26bpm,...
- Hirsute 6 hours 31 min ago
I made a complaint within an hour of the story being published. I have zero faith that they will amend anything....
- chrisonabike 6 hours 52 min ago
TBF I think that's before she saw the light and got on her bike. Not so great if her views have been informed by Mr. Briggs though.
- Saracen888 7 hours 32 min ago
That's a great price. Just bear in mind Import duty and handling charges will be applied pre delivery.
- Griff500 8 hours 54 min ago
Yep, I appreciate your problem. I wouldn't buy a bike without at least sitting on the same frame configuration on a trainer in the shop, something...
- Secret_squirrel 10 hours 8 min ago
One less thing to clutter up your jersey pockets no? Though difficult to retrieve in a hurry...
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59 comments
I think someone like this isn't fit to hold a license. Simple.
Yes many people can drive, some good some bad. It's really about being able to see things from someone else's view.
Hitting someone with a car can potentially lead to death. If you think that it's a fair outcome when there's a cyclist that will potentially add a few seconds to your journey; if you think that risky manoeuvre to get ahead, or feel resentment to someone simply for taking a different mode of transport, you shouldn't be driving.
Why do people always disregard the golden rule? Is it any wonder why there are almost 900 people dead in Gaza? Before anyone says that's a bit of a stretch linking the two, last week two ghetto rats in a car drove up beside me as I was climbing an 8% hill and grabbed my saddle, I hit the deck, ruined £200 worth of assos gear, and got bruises and grazes. For absolutely nothing. Didn't see them properly, couldn't identify them, on a completely quiet road. I felt helpless. Made me question why I even cycle on these roads.
Seeing the futile destruction in Gaza, you can only imagine how the people there feel. All because people refuse to see things from someone else's view.
If I had a rocket, as those two ghetto rats drove away, perhaps I wouldn't have hit their car, but i would have aimed just in front so their car fell in the hole
The fact is, on the road we are all Palestinian.
No, we're not.
We don't have an unelected gov't ruling by force, which is also sending more rockets against civilians than Germany did against London/England during the blitz. And then intentionally use us as human shields against the inevitable retaliation, hoping to get dead cyclists (Palestinians) in the news.
In fact, we're worse off, because in no way have we incited this hatred and resulting second-class status.
It's pretty hard to hold the moral high ground over what people write on internet media if you make spectacularly crass and inappropriate comparisons like that. Get a grip.
You're right of course. Was just watching the utter devastation in Gaza on the news. Now 1049 murdered. I thought I'd give a humanitarian donation, so sought out a charity that stated 100% donation policy. Only they mentioned HSBC has decided to give them notice to close their account because of their work in Gaza...the people in Gaza have it really stacked against them.
If you have an account with HSBC then please close it and tell them why (Nationwide are good).
Look, the situation in Gaza is horrendous on all sides. War criminals on both sides, and Palestinian civilians (and Israeli ones, including the 1 million Palestians living in Israel) targets. Neither you nor me should have brought that up really.
My point is simply that the cyclist-hatred here in England is utterly idiotic, and there's not even any basis at all in reality for it. It's just arbitrary bigotry and hate of an outgroup.
Well, what it was is this. UK/USA is kinda squeamish, so they never show full horror. Happened to click on a news item on a Chinese website. On it they had pictures of part a white phosphorus shell that a surgeon had removed from the body of a dead baby girl.
I clicked on road.cc next, I couldn't help but mention Gaza.
Works for me. Fetches kindling. I'm already singing Disco Inferno in my head. Marshmallows on a stick time.
+1 for what @RedfishUK said. Zero tolerance.
It's amazing the people who work in 'social media' who have no frikkin' clue about the power of social media.
Unless that 'power' translates into pressure on the agencies that can actually make a difference to cycling safety in infrastructure, driver training, policing, sentencing etc. it's just another tiny storm in a tiny teacup. Getting one idiot reprimanded for an indiscretion is not power.
No, but if it causes a few reckless drivers to start driving a bit more sensibly because of the realisation that they could lose their job if caught driving dangerously near a cyclist, then I'm 100% for the chastisement of these idioits.
I doubt this silly bitch will have a job after her internship comes to an end. Ha-ha!
Works in social media ………... more like anti-social media! What an own goal. You couldn't make it up.
Her parents are rich enough and well-connected enough to buy her an internship in the meeja. They'll have no trouble buying her a job.
For heavens sake, it's an internship in a pissy little marketing firm on a university campus in Brighton, hardly a place on the board at Time Warner.
I very much doubt that. Many interns work for little or nothing in an attempt, in the current pressing employment market, to gain any sort of relevant experience with which to tempt a prospective employer to actually give them a paying job. It is, in many cases, "work experience" under a different name. I imagine that the small company for whom she's currently interning are loath to sack her because she probably costs them next to nothing.
So let's not go down the cliché "Oh, she must be rich, privileged AND stupid" labelling, shall we?
Perhaps better to say that she's young, dumb and (after this publicity) has some inevitable growing up to do.
Wonder if she will drive into Buses that dont use the Bus Lanes too?
It might be more interesting to discover and question the Driving Schools and Test Centres that put these young drivers on the road in the first place, rather than their embarrassed employers.
Having passed my test recently, I can confirm that it is an arduous and rigorous process. I chatted with my instructor about the anti-cyclist aggression phenomenon - his view (having seen his former charges driving appallingly) is that many people (worst tend to be young men) simply choose to drive badly, even though they've proved their ability to drive well.
And part of the reason they do this is because society demonstrates that they will not be punished for it.
Exactly the same thing applies to those who think nothing of making what are effectively vigilante death threats, very very publicly indeed. Threatening to run someone over is tantamount to threatening to kill them; threatening to kill anyone who has, in your opinion, failed to meet your standard of behaviour, is threatening indiscriminate killing.
The former is appalling, the second would, in another context, almost be evidence of being a psychopath. But it is not evidence of that, because we live in a society where killing is shown to be OK as long as the killer is in a car and the victim is on a bicycle, and therefore threatening to do that sort of killing is merely stating your intent to do something completely normal.
The fault only lies partially with the idiot who threatened, via Twitter, to kill people. She didn't fail to understand the power of social media at all. She was absolutely aware that her threat would be widely seen, and (obviously) having a high opinion of her own opinion, she WANTED it seen widely.
Instead, we must understand that her failing was in not understanding that her threat was actually in any way wrong. Why didn't she understand this? Stupidity? No, not stupidity. She was merely a mirror in which we see the reflection of the attitudes of society at large.
It IS ACTUALLY NORMAL, if despicable, to imagine that using your car as a weapon with which to kill people is an acceptable course of action, as long as the target is imagined to be some sort of "road nuisance".
Have no doubt, the majority of drivers, plus the police, the courts, parliament and the media (led from the front by the Clarksons and proto-Clarksons) consider people to be nuisance - nay, vermin - the moment they sling a leg over a bicycle.
And they see themselves, smashing those vermin to a pulp with their cars, to be some sort of moral crusaders, clearing the streets of undesirables.
Our protagonist in this story merely placed herself in the vanguard of the crusade. The very notion that it was wrong to do so was completely invisible to her, as it is to so many that would send #bloodycyclists messages to the world, be they fantasists who dream of running "the bad guy" over, or perpetrators (Emma Way and her ilk) who drive away from a hit-and-run, tweeting their delight (or boasting to their mates in the pub) at having contributed to their imagined cause.
So what's the aim here? Sharpen the pitchforks and start another twithunt with the aim of getting another idiot sacked just because, out of all the other stupid, vain, offensive and dangerous bile on the web, this one can be traced back to an employer?
Honestly, this isn't news, it's opinion. It's opinions about opinions. It's crap.
Yes.
Quite ironic considering that this site posted a news article during the Grand Depart criticising the "Twitter Angry Brigade".
I wouldn't say so, although tweets like this provide stark, impassionate evidence of the dismissive attitude held by many drivers towards cyclists. Most of the other evidence comes from heat-of-the-moment helmet cams and pointless roadside arguments. For this reason alone I think it deserves to be publicised.
That's just, like, your opinion man.
Not a witch hunt. It is zero tolerance.
There was a recent study about how when people at work etc laughed at sexist jokes, it empowered those holding fairly extreme views.
This is no different.
From the only having a laugh Top Gear content, to these people who have a momentary lapse and think endangering people is funny; these comments make nutters on the road think their views are the mainstream.
Therefore they should be confronted at all times...and if the half brained idiot identifies themselves and their employers rather than remaining anonymous and end up getting sacked (even from an unpaid role), I'm not going to lose any sleep
Do you have a link to it? Not doubting it, I've seen similar re online discussions and zero-tolerance for trolling. Just want to read/refer to it.
For preference, sacked, charged with inciting violence and her licence to drive revoked.
No! No! No! No! No! [God. I sound like that bloody cat on the internet!*] What would that achieve? Just another bitter, twisted, cyclist hating idiot who stands up in the pub pontificating about bloody cyclists this and bloody cyclist that. These morons have to be educated and encouraged to be civilised human beings. We need friends and allies; we already have enough enemies.
*In case your wondering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxRX6LXDpWs
Good luck educating the brainless. I don't think it works. Making sure such eejits never drive again, and preferably never work again, would at least protect the rest of us. The reality of course is nothing will happen to her, or to the company sheltering her.
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