The online haters

The Spinoff reports:

Hence former Labour campaign manager Shane Te Pou, ex-Green MP Nandor Tanzcos, ex-Auckland Pride director Max Tweedie, and current Labour MPs Deborah Russell and Anna Lorck all being among those who admired the [Hooton] speech. 

One more was Richard Hills. The Auckland Councillor shared it with his followers along with a fairly anodyne comment: “I’ve got to know @MatthewHootonNz over the past few months. He was very nice to me and has a great sense of humour. A good speech and one I would think would have a positive impact on many of the young men he was speaking to.” …

The response to Hills’ tweet was so vitriolic that he appears to have locked his account in response (he has not responded to a request for comment by The Spinoff’s deadline). “Good bloke-ism”, “The whole speech was smug”, “absolutely abhorrent”, “a state school should not be offering a free speaking spot to a person like Hooton” typified the responses to Hills’ tweet. It escalated from there, and by the day’s end, “Matthew Hooton” was no longer trending – but “Richard Hills” was.

Twitter is a cesspit of mainly left leaning haters. Richard Hills merely complemented Hooton’s speech, and the mob turned on him, forcing him to lock his account.

This idea of hating everyone on the other side of you politically seems to be imported from the US. This is ironic as those who piled into Hills probably hate the US, yet they seem to copy the worst political behaviour from the US.