Benjamin Silseth promoted his new book about being young and queer in Norway. Then the “hate comments” poured in.
NRK reports that on the same day that psychologist and media profiler Benjamin Silseth published his book, hate comments started to pour in.
Here are some examples of what are described as hate comments:
“I’m going to buy the book and put it in the fireplace 馃敟馃敟”
“Leave the children alone, if there had been less of this aimed at children, fewer people would have felt queer.”
鈥淒amn shame to keep making this a thing to capitalise on. Exactly what destroyed ‘pride’ and made so many people lose respect馃憥 idiot.”
Silseth says he is particularly saddened to see that people use children as an excuse to spread incitement.
One of the worst things is that people push their children in front of them, but children don’t care that much. It’s the adults who care. Don’t be such a coward that you use children as a shield.
The criticism on social media is described by NRK as a “storm of hate comments”, which led to Cappelen Damm having to close the comment field under the ad they posted on TikTok.
Rikke Elling Gr酶nvold, communications manager for children’s and youth literature, uses children as an excuse for closing the comment section.
We also have a responsibility to ensure that children who read what we post on social media do not see such hateful comments, she says.
Almost like a threat, Benjamin Silseth concludes with the following to those who dare to criticise Pride:
I cannot understand why these people threaten others so badly when they know so terribly well what the consequences are.