'That Tinder girl': Olivia Melville speaks out about online harassment.

By Antoinette Lattouf. 

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.

” Ms Melville tells ABC News. “Seeing my face consistently being shared on Facebook … It was in the news everywhere as like, ‘Oh, there’s the Drake Tinder girl’.”

Zane Alchin, a 25-year-old friend of Mr Hall's, will this week face trial for allegedly making repeated rape threats to Ms Melville and her friends in August 2015. The case is being heralded by cyberbullying experts as a "test case" that will ascertain whether threats on social media are punishable under existing federal law (1997 Telecommunications Act).

To date, this legislation has largely been used for abuse and threats made over SMS, voice message or during a telephone conversation.

Ms Melville, who lives in Sydney's south, has never before spoken about her ordeal out of fear of provoking another backlash. She is also concerned about losing her job in the performing arts, and upsetting her parents, who she says "aren't that computer literate, so luckily they don't really understand it all".

She wasn't comfortable explaining to her parents what Tinder was, she says, but told them her photo was being shared and countless people were abusing her online.

"They kind of said, 'Oh that's terrible' but don't really understand it all, so then they were like, 'Just delete it'."

But she's speaking out now, she says, on behalf of women who are harassed and bullied online every day.

One in four women under 30 threatened with physical violence online

Ms Melville says she was threatened, abused and taunted after she and her friends shared Mr Hall's post — essentially "naming and shaming" him and calling out what they saw as sexist behaviour.

"I couldn't go home [after work] for five days," she says. "I couldn't be alone [and] I was really scared."

Instead of staying at her family home, Ms Melville stayed with friends so she had constant company and support.

"I was getting all these messages from people, and that was the most frightening thing — people were just bombarding me, abusing me, and saying I was in the wrong."

It quickly became apparent that this wasn't merely about social media courtesies and etiquette, but a growing cultural problem in which abuse of women online is fast becoming the norm.

According to a report released by cybersecurity company Norton, 76 per cent of women under 30 experience online harassment. One in seven women has been affected by general threats of physical violence, while a quarter of women under 30 say they've been threatened with violence online.

A 2015 United Nations report on online violence towards women found 61 per cent of perpetrators were men.

When Mr Alchin allegedly made rape threats to Ms Melville and her friends, Paloma Brierley-Newton reported his behaviour to the police. And the press.

"People think they can just say anything online," Ms Brierley-Newton tells ABC News.

"But when it's on the internet, it sticks, it gets circulated. Not to just 45 people in the school yard, but [to] 45 million people around the world."

Chris Hall: 'I've been made out to be a villain'

As a result of the media coverage the case attracted, Mr Hall claims he lost his job as a bartender, telling triple J's Hack last September he was fired because he had breached the company's social media policy.

"I couldn't believe it. I never commented anything bad, I never used bad words or anything," Mr Hall said.

Hotel Jannali licensee Trevor Thomson told ABC News Mr Hall's termination was "performance related". When asked if it was linked to Mr Hall's social media use, he would only say "no comment".

But Mr Hall maintains he did nothing wrong.

"I've been made out to be a villain in all of this — for reposting something that was already readily available on social media," he said.

The repercussions for his friend, however, have been more serious. Mr Alchin was arrested and charged with "using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence", though he has since pleaded not guilty to allegedly posting a series of abusive and threatening messages.

Mr Alchin did not respond to repeated requests for an interview from ABC News.

His trial begins on Monday at the Downing Centre in Sydney. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of three years in jail.

According to a 2016 report by Digital Australia, Australians spend on average 10 hours online every day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has led to an increase in a range of crimes carried out online.

Mr Alchin has been charged with "using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence". A "carriage service" is a service for carrying communications by means of guided and/or unguided electromagnetic energy. This is a broad definition and covers most electronic communication.

However this legislation was enacted almost two decades ago — well before the introduction of social media.

Dr Nicola Henry, a senior lecturer in Crime, Justice and Legal Studies at La Trobe University, considers Mr Alchin's trial a test case of existing laws that will help set parameters for what can and can't be said on social media.

A 'test case' for online abuse and threats

Dr Emma Jane, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales who studies gendered online abuse, believes online harassment is not treated seriously enough under Australian law.

"Threatening to rape or hurt someone is quite serious," Dr Jane told ABC News. "If I threatened you in another context, it would be taken very seriously."

Dr Jane sees this as is a landmark case which will put the spotlight on legal and police responses to online harassment of women. She says it will also help determine if Facebook is deemed a "carriage service".

Dr Jane says only a handful of gendered online abuse cases around the world have reached the courts. She believes this is because lawmakers are lagging behind new technology and the crimes that can accompany it.

"I think not only Australians but people around the world will be looking on to see how this case plays out," she said.

'Sexual Violence Won't Be Silenced'

As a result of their experience, Ms Melville and her friends launched the online campaign group Sexual Violence Won't Be Silenced (SVWBS) to lobby the government to take a stronger stance against cyberbullying and support other women who have been targeted.

SVWBS members meet every week to discuss any new cases that have been reported to them, respond to media enquiries and arrange meetings with policymakers.

"The Government [should] put forward a campaign that says, 'Don't attack women online, it's not cool to attack women online'," says Ms Brierley-Newton.

Ms Melville wants people to realise the effects of online harassment can be long lasting.

"It's really hard ... I actually felt a difference in the way my colleagues looked at me [after the incident] and I felt ... people didn't agree with what I did and were like, 'You shouldn't have done that'," she says.

Whatever the outcome, Ms Melville hopes the court case will serve as an example for others.

"I hope it will encourage women to report abuse and society in general to stop being silent bystanders," she says.

"The more people speak out about these things, the bigger chance we have to change our current culture that accepts sexual violence."

This story originally appeared on ABC News.

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