Twitter Bomb Threat Sent To Prof Mary Beard

 Twitter Bomb Threat Sent To
Prof Mary Beard

Classics expert Mary Beard has revealed she was sent a bomb threat on Twitter hours after a personal apology from the site's UK boss over attacks on women by "trolls".

Ms Beard, a professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, said she had contacted police after a message on Saturday night claiming a bomb had been left outside her home.
But on Sunday she was subjected to more threats through her Twitter account.
She wrote: "Planned to be off Twitter, but I've had more threats this morning (rape and worse). It IS still going on. Tried to report to Twitter, failed."
She had earlier written: "Just got one of these messages. A bomb has been placed outside your home. It will go off at exactly 10.47pm and destroy everything. Told police.
"OK all, it's 11.00pm and we are still here. So unless the trolling bombers' timekeeping is rotten ... all is well. But how stupidly nasty."
Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, the 58-year-old added: "There's something very strangely and awkwardly insidious about it.
"It is scary and it has got to stop.
"I didn't actually intellectually feel that I was in danger but I thought I was being harassed, and I thought I was being harassed in a particularly unpleasant way."
Earlier this week, Prof Beard silenced an internet troll after naming him on Twitter.
She retweeted the "highly offensive" post from Oliver Rawlings, who swiftly apologised after another user threatened to tell his mother.
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman, Independent columnist Grace Dent and Time magazine's Catherine Meyer, as well as a number of other women, have previously said they have been the subject of bomb threats on the site.
Two others received threats of rape.

Tony Wang, Twitter UK general manager, posted a series of tweets on Saturday saying abuse was "simply not acceptable".

His messages came after the website clarified its rules on abusive behaviour amid a growing backlash over a series of attacks.
Mr Wang wrote: "I personally apologise to the women who have experienced abuse on Twitter and for what they have gone through.
"The abuse they've received is simply not acceptable. It's not acceptable in the real world, and it's not acceptable on Twitter.
"There is more we can and will be doing to protect our users against abuse. That is our commitment."
The company has updated its rules to make it clear that abuse will not be tolerated and has put extra staff in place to handle reports of abuse, it said.
Ms Mayer, Europe editor at Time, said she had still not heard anything from the company after reporting the incident.
She told Sky News Online: "I think the in-tweet button to report abuse is a good idea, provided Twitter really does staff up enough to respond quickly and appropriately to complaints.
"Twitter has supposedly issued a personal apology to the women who received abuse, including me presumably.
"But although I notified Twitter of the bomb threat on Wednesday, I have yet to hear anything directly from the company."
The move comes as Scotland Yard said its e-crime unit was investigating allegations by eight people of abuse on the microblogging site.
An online petition calling for Twitter to add a "report abuse" button to tweets has already attracted more than 124,000 signatures.
An "in-tweet" report button has been added so people can report abusive behaviour directly from a tweet, Twitter said.
In separate incidents, Labour MP Stella Creasy and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, who successfully fought for a woman's face to appear on £10 banknotes, were threatened on Twitter with rape.
Two arrests have already been made in relation to those threats.
The anonymous Twitter accounts from which the bomb threats originated were suspended, although screen grabs were widely circulated online.
Scotland Yard said an investigation into eight allegations had been launched.
The force said: "The Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), who hold the police national cyber crime remit, is now investigating allegations made by eight people that they have been subject to harassment, malicious communication or bomb threats."