A British newspaper has named and shamed internet bullies calling for violence against teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The 17-year-old Swede was recently in Bristol, speaking to a crowd of thousands on world leaders' inaction on reducing carbon emissions.
Bristol Live, the website for local paper the Bristol Post, said on Saturday whenever it posted a story about Thunberg on its Facebook page, "they attracted hundreds, sometimes thousands of comments".
"The thousands of negative comments were on familiar themes - questioning the validity of climate science, questioning the rights of children to go 'on strike' from school, questioning young people's use of technology, transport and general carbon footprint and complaining about the disruption of the city centre's roads being closed," senior reporter Tristan Cork wrote.
"But most of the more furious ire was reserved for Greta Thunberg herself... These comments came in their thousands, day and night, filling Facebook pages and groups - faster in greater volume than anyone moderating those pages or groups, or Facebook itself, could hide or delete."
And much of it came from " grown men, many who appear to have children of their own" Bristol Live reported - then named and shamed locals who'd done it.
"Can someone grab her pigtails and ms trunchable her over the fence," wrote Kev Bennett, referring to a Roald Dahl character who brutally assaults children.
Stevie Ralph Taylor, whose profile image reveals him to be a balding white man probably in his 60s, said Thunberg should be "burnt at the stake", while Kevin Bird - a middle-aged white man posing in his profile picture with a bottle of beer - said "crush the bitch".
A man who suggested throwing milkshakes at Thunberg had a 'be kind' banner across his profile image.
Another adult man called for protesting schoolchildren to be sprayed with a water cannon, and another for Thunberg to be slapped "with a brick".
"The people who were appearing to make those suggestions of physical actions and violence were very often parents and grandparents themselves," wrote author Cook, saying the examples provided in Bristol Live's article were "a fraction" of the negative comments Thunberg seems to attract on social media.
Thunberg, who was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2019, is yet to comment on the article. But she did share on Twitter a Huffington Post report about an oil company using a picture of her being raped in a promo sticker.
"They are starting to get more and more desperate," she wrote. "This shows that we're winning."
