When Amber Gill tasked her old mate with running her Instagram account whilst she went into the Love Island villa in 2019, Mart Tweedy didn't think much of it.
There was never a plan, but she asked him to share funny tweets and memes. Just a day in, Mart, who had met Amber at their local gym in Newcastle, was hit with having to read 2,000 to 3,000 direct messages a day, calling Amber anything from a 'stupid wh***' to vile racist abuse using the n-word.
It was a job he certainly wasn't prepared for, and hadn't expected it to be so draining. It took a toll on his mental health and says the only people he could speak to about it that understood were the other family members and friends doing the same - but it was the "blind leading the blind".
This year, for the first time, ITV has made a major change that sees each Islander's social media accounts disabled whilst they are on the show.
It means no one will be running their online accounts this winter series to protect both them and their families - and is a change that Mart deems necessary.
"Earlier in the show, these messages were predominantly racist or just nasty for the sake of it," Mart, who is no longer in contact with Amber, told the Mirror.
"People didn't understand her personality straightaway.
"It wasn't just DMs. Whenever I posted a photo it would get 50,000 comments.
"It was really draining. People weren't giving a second thought about who was on the receiving end.
"I would spend hours every single day filtering out the messages so that when she [Amber] came out, she didn't have to see the negativity."
Comments included death threats such as telling Amber to "put your neck in a noose" and racist abuse.
When Mart looked into who was sending the messages, it was mainly young schoolchildren, he says.
He didn't respond at first, but then began sending the same copy-and-pasted message encouraging social media users to think twice about their messages, especially following the suicides of Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis
He received some apologies in response.
"It had a physical and emotional toll on me, I broke down," Mart added.
"Can you imagine reading messages about your friend one after the other like that?"
Once Amber began to win over the public vote, which saw her go on to win alongside Greg O'Shea, accounts then began sending unsolicited explicit photographs - "going from one extreme to the other".
"The ITV support package was poor at best, we were just left to our own devices to crack on without any formal training," Mart said.
"The only people I could speak to were the people running the other accounts. We were all in it together, it was the blind leading the blind."
Mart claims the first time ITV got in touch with him was four weeks in, when they asked him to remove a post.
Meanwhile, Amber's mum, Vanessa, reported the racist abuse to ITV producers, and her dad, Leon, said they had constant contact from the welfare team and felt supported, according to The Sun.
Last summer, Leon told the paper: "The biggest downside has been the trolling.
"...If it can happen to Caroline, who had the world at her feet, it can happen to anybody. It's cowards that do it. Cowards hiding behind anonymous accounts."
Following the changes made to the 2023 winter series - which also sees islanders receive guidance and training around mutually respectful behaviour in relationships - Mart is on board with the decision from ITV for islander social accounts to be disabled, relieving family and friends from the responsibility that came with it.
"I'm very for it, what they've done. But it's a shame it's taken nine seasons," the business owner said.
"I think it's about time they upped their duty of care, and I think it will weed out those contestants on the show looking to solely increase their followers too.
"It's good that families won't be put through what I had to be put through, and what other families had to go through".
On the same day Amber was crowned winner of the show, Mart's grandad died, and his mental health declined even more.
He came across crystal healing which helped him and decided to quit his NHS job after 15 years to start his own business, Canny Crystals.
"Things just went bad to worse. My mental well-being went really downhill and I found crystal healing," he explained.
"I started a business and quit the NHS and it's gone from strength to strength".
A few other former Love Island contestants have commented on the change instigated by ITV this year.
Tasha Ghouri, who came fourth in the 2022 summer series with boyfriend Andrew Le Page, had her dad Tarek manage her social media.
Whilst she was in the villa, he pleaded with the public to be kind to fellow contestant Luca Bish. Attaching examples of the abuse directed at the fishmonger, Tarek wrote in one story on his daughter's page: "This is VILE. Please STOP IT. NOW!"
But the 55-year-old says the support he received from ITV last year was "fantastic" and "thorough".
He told The Sun: "As I got more involved in the process, ITV were very inclusive - including the family in that - and that just built confidence very quickly.
"I have personal numbers of people that can ring if I see something on TV that I'm not, you know, not happy with or if Tasha is behaving in a way that wouldn't be normal for her."
Last Thursday, the model and dancer responded to a question about the new social media rule on her Instagram stories, and wrote: "Personally I think it's good.
"Obviously it isn’t going to stop hate or trolling sadly but it will lessen it massively.
"My friends and family had to see so much hate especially ableism, it really isn’t fair on them to have that responsibility to deal with that.
"So I think it's perfect for the friends and family to not have to worry about that."
On the decision, Dr Matthew Gould, a consultant chartered clinical psychologist who is also part of the duty of care team, said: "The enhanced safeguards introduced for Love Island 2023 demonstrate ITV's commitment to evolve duty of care protocols to minimise harm, where possible.
"The bold decision to pause islanders' social media activity during the new series is testament to ITV’s serious intent, especially as this input provides both a benefit to the appeal of the programme and a potential source of mental health problems.
"Balancing this tight-rope requires both the identification of which safeguards have the greatest positive impact on participants’ wellbeing and the professional partnership, put in place by ITV, especially between producers and their welfare teams, and most importantly, the contributors themselves."
Ahead of entering the villa, Islanders will also receive guidance and training around mutually respectful behaviour in relationships.
Participants will be offered resource links to read up on, in advance of meeting their fellow Islanders, to help them identify negative behaviours in relationships and understand the behaviour patterns associated with controlling and coercive behaviour.
Contributors on the show continue to be offered video training and guidance covering inclusive language around disability, sexuality, race and ethnicity, and microaggressions.
The Mirror has approached ITV regarding Mart's claims.
Love Island returns tonight on ITV2 at 9pm.
