JK Rowling threatened legal action after publicly criticising Glasgow MP Natalie McGarry for accusing her of supporting a “misogynist Twitter troll”.
The writer repeatedly challenged the MP to explain how she has "defended misogyny and abuse" in the a social media row that lasted six hours.
And the author said the MP, who recently quit the SNP whip to become an independent, would have to apologise if she could not justify her accusation.
Ms McGarry's online accusations came about after she discovered Ms Rowling conversing with a tweeter she claimed was a troll.
Ms Rowling had sent a "good man" message to a Tweeter who had said he had contributed to children's charity Lumos.
Ms McGarry then produced a screen grab of a foul tweet sent by the donor to one of her SNP colleagues.
Later Ms McGarry appeared to apologise saying: "Dear @jk_rowling. On reflection, I do apologise for any misguided inference that you support misogyny or abuse instead of the folk you tweet.
“On reflection, I shouldn't have accused Joanne Rowling of anything based on folk she tweets or retweets, and sends supportive tweets to."
But then later after saying she was to get on a plane from London to Glasgow, Ms McGarry repeated the accusation with another screen grab of the donor’s foul tweet with Ms Rowling's “good man” tweet tacked on.
Ms Rowling retorted: “*sighs* OK, Natalie, that's cut and pasted to suggest I said 'good man' to that tweet, not to fundraising for charity.
“This 'proof' is cut and pasted. I assume you want to retract the apology you made 3 mins ago?”
Later Ms McGarry said she was going to quit Twitter.
Ms Rowling told Ms McGarry: "You don't appear to understand how Twitter or defamation works. I'm going to help you out with the latter." She later said damages would go to the Lumos.
In the early hours of Friday morning, six hours after the row began, Ms McGarry's Twitter feed became hidden from public view with only confirmed followers having access.
A spokeswoman for the author said: "JK Rowling won’t be saying anything further than what is on her Twitter feed..."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel