Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Far-right 'trying to ruin the Government’s LGBT survey' with false submissions

Internet trolls attempt to flood the survey with Islamophobic and homophobic remarks

Caroline Mortimer
Thursday 27 July 2017 06:44 EDT
Comments
Survey launched on Sunday asks LGBT+ people what policies they think will improve their lives
Survey launched on Sunday asks LGBT+ people what policies they think will improve their lives (AP)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Far-right trolls have been trying to distort the results of the Government’s first LGBT survey.

The initiative, which was launched by the Government Equalities Office, is designed to be an opportunity for LGBT+ people to have their say on the future of the Government’s equality policies.

More than 60,000 people have already responded to the consultation, which opened on Sunday and ends in October, but there are fears that it may be derailed by false submissions written by users of internet forum 4chan.

One user posted a link to the survey on the site’s /pol/ section, where users post “politically incorrect” comments, and urged others to troll it with racist and homophobic responses.

Another user said people on the site should “make sure to fill this in and f*** it up lads the 'conservative' party wants to bring in more anti freedom pro degenerate policies again [sic]”.

Another said: “What a lot of people did yesterday was identifying as a Muslim transperson and pointing out anti LGBT behaviour in the Muslim community.”

Other users said they should attempt to spread Islamophobia through the survey by creating “an authentic LGBT person and blame all oppression on Muslims”.

Others suggested sending obviously fake responses to the survey.

After being posted to 4chan, where users can post comments to its forums anonymously, the idea appeared to spread to neo-Nazi website Stormfront, PinkNews reported.

One said they had written “living as a pedosexual [sic] ferret is rough guys” and another said they were a “level 28 gender druid”.

The Government said it was aware that there were "fake" responses to the survey and is working to delete the false entries.

A spokeswoman for the Equality Office said the best way to combat the problem was for LGBT people to take the survey "so that any erroneous responses only ever make up a small proportion of the total".

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in