Virtual discussion on gender-based violence disrupted by troll with rude sex act

Trolls interrupted a meeting on gender-based violence by flashing, singing and asking attendees for sexual favours.

It's the second such incident in the last fortnight, after a vigil for late teacher Ashling Murphy was hijacked by a man masturbating.

The People Before Profit-hosted meeting took place on Zoom on Tuesday night, with around 150 people in attendance.

The meeting covered the topic of gender-based violence with speeches from Noeline Blackwell, the CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Orla O’Connor from the National Women’s Council, and PBP councillor Fiona Ferguson.

But the call was beset by a number of trolls who sought to continuously interrupt the proceedings, Dublin Live report.

PBP rep for Tallaght South Emma Hendrick told the website: “It’s unreal, seeing something like that on the screen during a gender-based violence meeting.

“When you’re talking about misogyny, sexism....what can we do to tackle this type of stuff, and then some man has the neck to come on and do that.

“As soon as Fiona came onto speak, some guy kept interrupting, he was singing and he couldn’t be muted for some reason.

"Somebody wrote something like ‘who can give me a w**k’ in the chat, and then someone put a picture of a penis in the chat.

“Someone then came on the screen and they were exposing themselves.”

Emma explained that she never experienced anything like it before.

She said: “Zoom needs to take some type of responsibility. People were putting in the chat to remove him, he didn’t have a real name. The hosts were trying to do that as quickly as possible."

The incident took place less than 10 days after the similar moment in the Ashling Murphy vigil.

Traveller activist Rose Marie Maughan was in the middle of a speech when the man appeared in the all-women vigil held on Zoom using the name and email of one of the other attendees, journalist Christine O'Mahony.

He was quickly removed from the call after his screen appeared to show a man masturbating.

The event was being held in memory of Ashling Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher who was killed while out jogging at 4pm last Wednesday in Tullamore.

Over 80 people had logged on to the vigil and discussion, organised by activist Evie Nevin for anyone who had been unable to attend a vigil in person.