The treatment of Stan Grant that has driven him off the ABC is a case study in how content on the professional mass media can fuel social media toxicity, especially on issues such as race.
It does not require the professional mass media to be overtly racist to accomplish this, but to send signals of intense disapproval that trolls then use as the basis for their racist attacks.
Grant himself clearly sees this. In his statement on ABC Online announcing his decision to step away from hosting Q+A on ABC television, he wrote:
