back to article Twitter mobs attack wrong celebrity Ian Watkins after child abuse case

A furious online hate mob has attacked Steps singer H after trying to launch a hate campaign against a different celebrity musician who pled guilty to a string of vile child sex offences. Lostprophet singer Ian Watkins was yesterday convicted of a number of hideous crimes, including the attempted rape of a baby. After the …

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  1. lansalot

    ah come on...

    Not the first time a bunch of torch-wielding fuckwits have descended on the wrong punter.. Happens on facebook as well.

    Depressing.

    1. Anonymous Custard

      Re: ah come on...

      Indeed, although I think it rather pre-dates all the modern social media. It's just faster and more wide-reaching in its ineptitude these days.

      Brings to mind a story I heard a while back about a hospital doctor who had her house torched 'cos some such "person" could tell the difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician...

      1. Anonymous Coward 101

        Re: ah come on...

        "Brings to mind a story I heard a while back about a hospital doctor who had her house torched 'cos some such "person" could tell the difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician..."

        That is an exaggerated, but still serious, story - she actually had the word 'paedo' graffitied on her wall.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ah come on...

        "Brings to mind a story..."

        Never happened.

        1. Anonymous Custard

          Re: ah come on...

          @ AC_101

          I sit corrected (a little research turns up the link below, plus a few others on the story). Some Chinese whispering involved into my ears or possibly my recall, but the retribution against the innocent still occurred, albeit thankfully to a less serious extent than my first recollection.

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm

          1. Dave 126 Silver badge

            Re: ah come on...

            The good folk of Springfield form a pitchfork-wielding mob about once per series of the Simpsons... it's almost as if the writers were trying to make a point or something.

        2. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: ah come on...

          >"Brings to mind a story..."

          >>Never happened.

          Or, it might mean 'I can't be arsed to find an on-line reference to said story'

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: ah come on...

            It didn't happen, some kids sprayed some graffiti because they were bored, not torched her house.

            1. Graham Marsden

              Re: ah come on...

              Whilst the story of Yvette Cloette has been blown out of all proportion, there was, much more recently, the case of Bijan Ebrahimi a mentally disabled man who was falsely accused of being a paedophile after taking pictures of local youths who had been destroying his flowers who was kicked unconscious and then burned to death!

              http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/bijan-ebrahimi-burned-to-death-pedophilia_n_4209497.html

            2. goldcd

              Mixed up with this incident?

              http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/29/vigilante-murder-paedophile-bristol-bijan-ebrahimi

  2. Hoe

    Do the people who post this stuff not realise that the real offender won't be allowed to use or see Twitter or a long, long time and therefore never see their messages anyway even if it was the right account? LOL.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That doesn't matter

      The idea is to tell the world how outraged the poster is, not to actually get a message to the cause of said outrage.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Do the people who post this stuff not realise that"

      No. Most of them are the sort of people who have to wear googles when using cultery in case they poke themselves in the eye. Utter fuckwits, the lot of them. Twitter should require an IQ test to be completed before an account can be opened and then every week or so.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Considering many inmates have mobile phones, it seems quite likely he would... plus they do have internet in gaol...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > plus they do have internet in gaol...

          Not in my day we... errr... they didn't.

      2. Irony Deficient

        “the sort of people who have to wear googles when using cultery”

        boltar, in this phrase, I must admit that I prefer your spellings to the standard ones.

      3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Meh

        There is a reason Twatter attracts this type of wannabe mob-seekers - they all want everyone to share their "deepest thoughts" but find anything longer than 140 characters too big a challenge.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        RE: "Twitter should require an IQ test"

        It does.

        If you have an account you have failed.

      5. John Hughes

        Twitter IQ test

        "Twitter should require an IQ test to be completed before an account can be opened "

        But then no accounts would ever be opened.

        Maybe that is what you intended, if so, well done.

        Edit: Hah, the AC above said it better than me.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Do the people who post this stuff not realise that the real offender won't be allowed to use or see Twitter or a long, long time

      And what about the ones that post their condolences addressing the deceased?

      "Wilkinson, you were blah and blah, and such a blah."

      Well, why didn't you fucking tell him while he was still alive? :-b

    4. Gav

      Do people not realise? No, because people are morons. And once they get together in a mob (even virtually) they make morons look thoughtful.

      Speaking of which;

      "I asked H if he thought Steps might be able to help solve the Eurozone crisis, to which he replied: "Yes, I think so.""

      Ask a stupid question....

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Comments directed at H

    They were justified - wtf is H doing? He should burn in hell etc. Just listen to the music !

  4. CAPS LOCK

    It's a Tradgedy.

    Torches and pitchforks all round.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only one solution

    Everyone must have their unique national identity number tattooed on their forehead (and in an embedded chip in their brain) and all online activity must record and show the ID.

    Obviously it's for the sake of the children.

  6. JeeBee

    That's always the bad thing about sharing a name with someone who becomes a hated criminal!

    Luckily none of the affected people are taking it further, but I can easily imagine that another person would involve the police if they weren't aware of why they were suddenly receiving hate messages.

    1. Anonymous Coward 101

      I dare say people called Peter Sutcliffe and Rosemary West changed their names by deed poll after the unpleasantness their namesakes were involved in.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sharing a name is bad.

      Try having a silver car when the local PTA are sending leaflets around the area about the occupants of a silver car acting suspiciously around the local school....

      *The* most common car colour for a number of years.

      Specifically vague.

  7. tony

    E Online

    The current image on E Onlines article about Watkins isn't helping...

  8. The Cogito
    Facepalm

    Mob mentality

    And not the money making kind

  9. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Twitter Justice....

    Question : But how do you know she's a witch?

    Twatterers : Because she looks like one; she turned me into a newt... but... I got better.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not Quite

    > Perhaps the chief inspector should have specified just which celebrity Ian Watkins he meant.

    Or perhaps people should just refrain from doing the whole vigilante thing.

    1. LaeMing

      Re: Not Quite

      Or people should realise that with 7 billion people on the planet, namespace collisions are going to happen!

  11. BlinkenLights

    WTF?

    "Perhaps the chief inspector should have specified just which celebrity Ian Watkins he meant."

    This is probably the dumbest comment ever in a Register article. The clue was in the previous paragraph. "The lead investigator in the case of the Lostprophets Ian Watkins". Who else would he be talking about?

  12. taxman
    Facepalm

    fading memory

    but wasn't there recently some police activity against people who were writing/venting not nice words against others on such, ahem, things like Twitter? So if the police could do that then why not again for these poor individuals who through no reason have been cstigated throughout cyberdom. Or perhaps would Twitter suspend/cancel the accounts of such idiots?

    And when is it that pigs will fly.....

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In the 1700s

    It was called a "Witch hunt".

    Things haven't improved much since then.

    I really do wonder if the planet would be better off without humanity, we should consider voluntary extinction.

    1. hamcheeseandonion

      Re: In the 1700s

      I for one fully intend to voluntarily extinguish myself, either when i pay off all my debt, or if Scotland votes YES to independence.

      I urge any thinking Scotsperson to consider the same, if next year brings more of the mindless parochialism we already endure - witchhunts will be the least of it, think more along the lines of "ethnic cleansing"

      Which makes me ponder the merits of putting all Twattface users to the sword?

  14. commonsense

    "I hope H is locked up for a long time for his crimes."

    ... quite right. A life sentence would be too lenient for that camp frothy Steps nonsense.

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