Online Bullying: John Boyega Expects More out of Twitter and Instagram
In an interview with TechCrunch after Microsoft’s Imagine Cup, John Boyega chatted with Devin Coldewey about appreciating technology, internet bullying, and Pokémon GO.
Boyega was one of three judges at the Imagine Cup, a global competition where young people create new software and devices for prizes in games, innovation, and global citizenship. While the Star Wars actor told Coldewey he didn’t grow up with a lot of technology, he finds it “nice that Microsoft is looking at the younger generation and care about their ideas, and they’re helping them further themselves as individuals.”
The actor also spoke about bullying on stage, and when asked about whether he thinks companies like Twitter and Instagram will address harassment more, Boyega replied:
Oh, yeah. Officially they should. Especially with the trolling Twitter accounts and Instagram accounts that we have. Recently Instagram did send an email to everyone on the network that they would be deleting thousands and thousands of troll accounts, but at the same time their basis for that was interesting to me. How can you tell? Like if someone has 500 followers versus 328, does that make a difference? You can just build up followers like that on Instagram anyway. But it’ll be interesting to see what they do.
And bullying comes in all different forms, and people show it in different ways when they’re the victim.
Boyega has always been very outspoken against his online haters, and supportive of other celebrities who have dealt with harassment. This includes Leslie Jones, who recently dealt with an onslaught of Twitter abuse, and his Star Wars co-star Daisy Ridley, who recently left Instagram because of trolls. Certainly, while more anti-harassment tools seem to be now available online, we also know that harassment is still rampant despite media attention.
For the full interview, where Boyega’s chats about what kind of innovations he’d like to see globally and in films, and an account of becoming “the most popular kid on set” after catching a Pikachu during Star Wars shooting, head on over to TechCrunch!
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