Celebrities are more protected from cyberabuse than ordinary people due to their attractiveness

Celebrities and famous people are seen as more "attractive" which helps to protect them much more than ordinary people when they are cyberabused, new research has revealed. While being a celebrity doesn't make them immune from the cyberbullies, when they do become targets of the trolls these incidents were seen as much more severe than those involving other people. The new research, published in the Computers in Human Behaviour Journal, also shows that at the root of this is the public perception that celebrities are more "attractive", rendering any abuse they receive as being much more socially unacceptable. The report suggests that celebrity gives famous people when they are online "a protective 'halo' related to the 'what is beautiful is good' phenomenon". The only exception to this was when celebrity social media user initially tweeted negative content, in which case, they received more blame. The research looked mainly at interactions and incidents of trolling and cyberabuse on the social media platform Twitter. Dr Christopher Hand , Senior Lecturer in Psychology, at the University of Glasgow, the report's co-author, said: "Our research found that celebrities appear to be held in higher regard and considered more attractive than other social media users, affording them protection when abused online.