AFLW star Tayla Harris has opened up about a second wave of cyber abuse that left her in a “worse mental state” than when the famous photo of her kicking a footy was flooded with repulsive sexual and abusive comments.
The 24-year-old gave evidence at the parliamentary inquiry into social media and online safety on Tuesday where she spoke about an online “pile on” attacking her character when she moved from Carlton to Melbourne last year.
“A more recent one that happened that I haven’t’ really spoken about to be honest was when I left the Carlton Football Club to go to the Melbourne Football Club,” Harris, who is also a professional boxer, told the inquiry.
“The narrative was created that I wanted all this money, which wasn’t true, which was the most frustrating part.”
She said that she was flooded with “nasty and hurtful” comments and private messages from people saying it was unbelievable she could request an obscene amount of money.
“The laughable part was it was probably just a regular wage,” she said.
“So that was the concerning thing, that people, particularly men, are just so obsessed with the idea that women do not deserve anything near what the men deserve.
“And so that one probably got me in a worse mental state than the previous one.”
In 2019 Harris made international headlines when she took a stand against online trolls who had posted disgusting comments on a photo of her kicking a footy.
Harris, who described the photo as “fantastic”, told the inquiry the most concerning part was looking at the accounts that weren’t anonymous.
It made her concerned about whether they were perpetrators of domestic violence – with experts confirming to her it was a warning sign.
“One I’ll never forget is this man with daughters or with what seemed to be daughters or a family in the profile picture,” she said,
She said “would love” to just delete all social media after the combination of sexism, misogyny and character attacks.
“I’ve very consciously not been not using ixjmtzywt and not being active recently,” she said.
“Which is disappointing because I love to share positive messaging and I love to inspire people – but at what cost?”
The inquiry also heard from Hawthorn star Chad Wingard who called for an identification system online after being subjected to racial abuse that caused him extreme distress.
“Whether that’s a driver’s licence or birth certificate, I feel like having a profile is a privilege but it also has accountability towards it,” he said.
He said he and his family had been subjected to trolling when he was traded.
The AFL’s inclusion and social policy executive Tanya Hosch told the inquiry that a major issue was trying to unmask anonymous trolls – which often led to “dead ends”.
“For us the biggest difficulty is the fake accounts and the ability for people to set up online accounts without having to reveal their own personal identities, it means it can be incredibly hard to trace these people,” she said.
She also revealed a disturbing reality that sometimes the abusers were underage, so naming and shaming would not be appropriate.
“Certainly we have had an instance, where sometimes these are quite young people, who are exhibiting this behaviour we’ve uncovered later,” she said.
