No place for trolls

EDITOR

JAMES GRAHAM

AT a time when the industry is screaming out for heavy vehicle drivers and looking at ways to attract new talent, why is it that some feel it’s okay to take to social media and tear others down?

At Big Rigs, we share and celebrate the stories of countless truckies, regardless of whether they are male or female. While a truckie’s gender plays no role in determining whether or not their story gets published, there’s a big disparity in the sorts of comments we’re seeing online. Almost every time we share a feature about a female driver on our Facebook page, the sexist ‘commentators’ come out to play.

While women driving trucks “isn’t news” in the words of some vocal readers, their stories are just as deserving of space as their male counterparts. And yet we see the same sorts of comments over and over again: “Who cares?”, “Not news”, “Just get on with it”. Strangely, when it’s the story of a male truckie, the keyboard warriors go quiet.