Yassmin Abdel-Magied is moving to London. She’s doing what many Australians have done before her: Taking a stint overseas to further her career and explore new opportunities.
Abdel-Magied revealed the news in a simple tweet earlier this week, that has since been liked more than 1000 times.
#GearingUpForANewAdventure. Folks, it’s been fun, but I’m off to partake in the Aussie rite of passage – I’m moving to London! 💖 #inshallah pic.twitter.com/RJFozmGFAu
— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) July 3, 2017
Not wanting to miss an opportunity, some of our biggest media outlets used the move to further degrade and target Abdel-Magied for speaking out about issues she cares about.
Some are still deeply concerned by a Facebook post Abdel-Magied made on ANZAC Day this year — a post that she removed within hours of publishing, and has since apologised for.
Abdel-Magied’s latest announcement creates some excellent fodder for those certain media outlets to publish yet ever more words about what she does and does not have the right to say — and particularly to provoke readers and viewers to share their own opinions.
If you thought Channel 7 was above such behaviour, think again.
It shared a poll on its Facebook page yesterday, asking readers and viewers to share whether or not they thought “Yes, it’s a good move for her” or if “No, she should stay in the country”.
Perhaps Channel 7 is genuinely interested in what its audience thinks about how and where Abdel-Magied’s progressing her career?
Apparently not. Channel 7 also shared this question with the poll: “Do you support her decision to move to London, or do you think she should stay and face her critics?”
Wtf pic.twitter.com/lrEKzgwuno
— Osman Faruqi (@oz_f) July 4, 2017
Channel 7 has since removed the poll, but not before stating that 85% of respondents said “yes it’s a good move for her” (although who knows what that means, given the way the poll was positioned). According to News.com.au, it received more than 1600 comments and 17,500 votes before being removed.
One can only imagine how horrible some of those comments were — and anyone publishing such a poll could not have expected anything less. However, there were also plenty of Facebook users who hit back at Channel 7 for inviting bullying and racists remarks.
Abdel-Magied told News the poll reflected poor editorial decision-making from channel 7. “The outlet’s profiling of me in this way invites prejudice and discrimination. It’s pretty trashy click-bait,” she said.
UPDATE: Yahoo7 has issued a statement to Women’s Agenda on the poll, as the administrators of seven’s Facebook page.
“The poll regarding Yassmin Adbel-Magied was posted by the Yahoo7 online news team, which administers the 7News Australia Facebook page, together with 7News. It was posted to genuinely create discussion around a balanced article and it was never the intention to generate inappropriate commentary on social media. We accept this was an error of judgement, the post has been removed and we unreservedly apologise to anyone offended.
So can you guess what Abdel-Magied’s most going to miss from Australia?
Aw they took like 2.5 hrs to report it. Slow. Y’all are slipping! 😘 https://t.co/z83ATsge1Y
— Yassmin Abdel-Magied (@yassmin_a) July 3, 2017