Rachel Riley has opened up being on the receiving end of “invasive” and “disgusting” abuse from online trolls.
Rachel Riley reveals the constant vile and misogynistic abuse in her inbox from online trolls
The ‘Countdown’ host - who has half a million followers on Instagram - has been met with hundreds of unsolicited images and videos of a sexual nature in her inbox.
The 36-year-old mathematician has described the explicit content she received as stomach-turning and revealed that alongside the messages she also had strangers trying to call her, as well as Photoshop her face onto a porn star performing a sexual act.
She told the MailOnline: "It really makes me not want to go into my DMs at all because it’s revolting. It’s astounding to know that strangers are sending porn - it empowers them to know that it’s gone to your inbox – they get off on it.
"On Instagram, any old pervert can privately send you something that should be illegal. If they did it on the street, they’d be arrested.
Teenage girls could receive this stuff while no one else knows because it's behind closed doors. It's invasive and disgusting."
Rachel, who is an ambassador of the CCDH (Centre for Countering Digital Hate), said that unfortunately for women in the public eye this is a common thing and social media platforms aren’t doing enough to combat the abuse.
She added: “For women in the public eye, receiving a constant stream of rude, inappropriate and even abusive messages to your DMs is unfortunately inevitable, and the fact that this happens away from the public eye, makes it all the more intrusive.
"I just think all social media are not fit to regulate themselves, clearly. They've got the technology to identify that this content is revolting, but these users still have the technology to send unsolicited images to you.
“Instagram and other platforms have a duty to keep the woman who their sites safe, but at the moment there isn’t enough being done to protect them.”
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