Olivia Melville has been lauded and loathed for standing up to men who allegedly harassed her online. One of her alleged offenders will this week face trial, and the case is expected to set a precedent for whether threats made on social media are punishable under existing federal law.
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When I first meet Olivia Melville, she’s nervously sipping her fruit smoothie, glancing at everyone who passes our table at an inner-city cafe. She’s worried people might recognise her from news reports or social media, she explains.
It has been almost a year since Chris Hall, a man Ms Melville did not know, took a screenshot of her Tinder profile and posted it on Facebook, where it was shared thousands of times. In her bio, she’d quoted a lyric by Canadian rapper, Drake: “The type of girl that will suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you.”
“Stay classy ladies,” wrote Mr Hall, a 31-year-old bartender. “I’m surprised she’d still be hungry for lunch.”
Since then, Ms Melville, 25, says she has been abused by more people than she can keep count of, most of them strangers. She’s been called a slut, mocked about her weight, threatened with rape, and repeatedly told that she brought all the negative attention she has received on herself.
She can’t fathom how simply citing a lyric has caused her so much notoriety, landed a Sydney man in court and inadvertently kick-started a movement calling for the Australian Government to better address online violence towards women.