Too sensitive?

You report (13 July) that a bioethics PhD student (why is that relevant?) has been “targeted” and “subjected to a backlash of Twitter abuse by cybernats” for implicitly criticising the SNP government’s actions in relation to food poverty by raising a petition in the parliament.

The chap is quoted as saying: “The abusive comments on my Twitter account were things like ‘You’re making the SNP government looking bad’, ‘It’s not their fault’ and ‘Why don’t you go and do some research?’”

That’s hardly abuse – perhaps your headline should have been: “Sensitive soul upset that some people disagree with his tactics.”

Brian Dempsey

School of Law

University of Dundee