Trolled topless protestor ‘fearing for her life’ over vile messages
A controversial animal rights activist says she has been inundated with thousands of “abusive and disgusting” messages from social media users, with some threatening to rape and murder her.
The Perth protester took to Facebook this week to call out one troll, saying there have been occasions where she has “literally feared” for her life, too terrified to come home.
“I have literally had people directly say that they are going to come and rape and murder me multiple times,” Tash Peterson told Yahoo News Australia.
“I have been called every name under the sun and it is horrible.”
“I know all it takes is one crazy person to do something really bad.”
The 28-year-old has made a name for herself in recent years due to her “disruptive style” of activism, which often involves nudity and shock value.
But she says the response to her actions has become life threatening over the last two years.
“I remember my first big protest at the end of 2019 and I was just flooded with thousands of hateful messages and from there it has progressed in terms of multiple death threats and even people coming to my house and throwing animal flesh and bones on my car and in my driveway,” she said.
Ms Peterson, who has no idea how social media users found her home address, shared one post on Wednesday.
In a series of message, the man personally told Ms Peterson to "try catching a moving bullet" with her face before adding: "I’d love it if you ended up getting raped and murdered."
“I have been terrified for my life a couple of times now but I sort of have let that go,” Ms Peterson said.
“I use these negative comments to fuel my fire to fight even harder for non-human animals.”
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For the vegan activist, it is important for her to highlight the ingrained misogyny that still exists in society, and that there is still a massive issue with violence towards women.
But she says the number one reason why she chose to expose her troll was because the police haven’t done anything about her complaints.
“I was shocked with the way most of them handled [my reports],” Ms Peterson told Yahoo News Australia.
“Most of the time they would say they couldn't do anything about it and one police officer victim blamed me and said ‘you kind of put it on yourself don't you?’”
In a response to Yahoo News Australia, Western Australian Police said that “any matters that are reported or have been reported to police are investigated.”
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