Countdown: Rachel Riley introduces her new baby
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Countdown presenter Rachel Riley has amassed over half a million Instagram followers, but not all of them are wholesome. In fact, she finds herself fending off scores of inappropriate, and at times, abusive messages.
It really makes me not want to go into my DMs at all
Rachel Riley
The 36-year-old beauty, who became Carol Vorderman’s successor on Countdown, has struggled with the nasty comments after her rise to fame.
Rachel explained the “disgusting” communications often encourage the TV star to stay away from her social media accounts.
“It really makes me not want to go into my DMs at all because it’s revolting,” she vented.
“It’s astounding to know that strangers are sending porn – it empowers them to know that it’s gone to your inbox.”
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The maths whizz admitted that the content of the messages often “turned her stomach” – but that it was proving difficult to control the communication.
She acknowledged: “For women in the public eye, receiving a constant stream of rude, inappropriate and even abusive messages to your DMs [direct messages] is unfortunately inevitable.
“The fact that this happens away from public view makes it all the more intrusive.”
Now, an aggravated Rachel has hit out at social media platforms for not clamping down on the offensive activity and protecting women.
She has become an ambassador for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which is urging government and regulators to do more to protect the victims of digital crimes.
Rachel has also suggested that the matter should be taken out of the hands of the platforms and shifted to a regulating body.
She stated that social media brands were unfit to regulate themselves.
The dismayed presenter continued in quotes published in the Daily Mail: “Teenage girls could receive this stuff while no one else knows because it’s behind closed doors. It’s invasive and disgusting.”
Researchers were given access to Rachel’s account – along with that of Amber Heard, who received death threats and intense trolling after taking Johnny Depp to court.
Those were just two out of a series of high profile women who took part in the research – and the results astonished the researchers.
They reported that Instagram had failed to take action on nine out of every ten abusive messages the women had received via the platform, despite all having been reported to moderators.
They also found that a further one out of every 15 messages received across a two month period broke the platform’s rules against abuse and harassment.
Out of 254 accounts that they flagged to moderators for behaviour that did not meet Instagram’s terms of service, they reported that 227 remained active a month later.
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, commented via Cindy Southworth, head of women’s safety, that they “disagree with many of the CCDH’s conclusions [but] do agree that the harassment of women is unacceptable”.
Cindy went on to insist that the platform doesn’t allow “gender-based hate or any threat of sexual violence” and claimed that in 2021, it had “announced stronger protections for female public figures”.
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