The BBC’s Marianna Spring: ‘It’s really normal to really hate me’

The BBC has a system for monitoring online abuse of its journalists. Software detects correspondence containing physical threats, cyberbullying, violent language, negative sentiment and doxxing (revealing someone’s personal information online) and flags these cases for “escalation” and further assessment. Between January 1 this year and late June there were 14,488 escalations. Of these, 11,771 — more than 80 per cent — were directed at one reporter: Marianna Spring, its 27-year-old disinformation and social media correspondent, who only joined the corporation four years ago.

“When I found that out, I was quite relieved,” Spring says. “To have someone be, like, ‘Oh, actually, you do receive this phenomenal level of abuse,’ it makes you think, ‘Oh yeah, OK, I’m not going mad.’” Her iPhone is full of