Member's statement: Social Media Abuse
Member's statement by Ms Kate Nicholl on .
- MLA
- Ms Kate Nicholl
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 16 June 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Social Media Abuse
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5623556
Read the official Assembly record
Text
A few days ago, the world's first trillionaire, Elon Musk — a man with no mandate; an immigrant with wealth twice the GDP of the country that he came from — commented on a photo of the first citizen of Belfast and described her as a "Betrayer of her people". As a former Lord Mayor, I was not only shocked that someone who bought that social media platform to spread his ideological views would comment on the first citizen of Belfast but surprised that there was not more commentary on it. I feel strongly that Elon Musk has no real idea of what people across the world are going through, let alone those in Belfast. That comment spoke to something more sinister that is going on in our society. In the news, there have been comments about how proxies have attacked the Prime Minister. The other day, Suzanne Breen wrote a powerful article about the abuse that she has received as a journalist, and what struck me when she posted that on social media were the comments from other women and other people who said that they had been receiving the same sort of abuse. Looking around the Chamber, I am sure that everyone here has received similar. There has been a noticeable change in the comments that we get in response to what we put on social media. We all have thick skin, and we have all been around for long enough to deal with the cut and thrust of politics, as it is often described here, but there has been a shift and a change. I had never had to report the comments that I received to the police, but I had to do that last week. Awful things that brought in families were said. The comments were violent and at a different level from anything that I have seen before. We are in a difficult place right now. This destabilises our democracy. It is easy to believe lies when you are angry, and I am not sure what we do about it. I know that there is discussion about how new laws on cybersecurity need to be brought in, and I know that we need to address more of that. I am concerned about the bad actors at play, the misinformation and the inflaming of situations that are coming and about the fact that that is happening across society. We have to inform ourselves and challenge it when we see it and, when we engage — this might not sound like a theoretical thing to do — to do so with kindness and empathy, because we live in a dark time, and it is important that we bring that into our politics. Solidarity to everyone who is going through this right now but especially to the first citizen of Belfast, who should not have been subjected to that.
481 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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