His rock, his strength, his wife.
11
Anthony
Each of the six screens in Anthony’s office was filled withmoving images, but only one had his undivided attention.
Days after Jem Jones’ suicide, her story remained headline news as each of the major networks covered the national outpouring of grief. He wasn’t naive – he had expected Jem’s dramatic death to dominate several news cycles – but even he was taken aback by the groundswell of support that was showing no signs of shrinking. And he couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was only natural, he reasoned, as they had been in one another’s lives for the longest time. But familiarity breeds contempt and there were times that he hated her too, or at least, what she had become.
Already that morning, Sky News had filled its schedule with tributes from other social media luminaries, alongside clips of Jem’s memorable moments and her most-viewed Vlogs. Meanwhile CNN had broadcast a segment where studio-based body language experts dissected her facial and body movements in posts leading up to her death. They picked apart anything that might have indicated her state of mind.
On YouTube, Anthony viewed a report from the previous night, filmed outside Jem’s gated Buckinghamshire home. It was surrounded by hundreds of fans, many wearing her image emblazoned on t-shirts and some in Jem Jones cardboard masks printed from the internet, all holding a candlelit vigil. Photos and posters had been attached to lampposts and bunches of flowers had been tied to the gates or placed on the pavement. There were so many tributes that police had closed the road to traffic. Traces of anti-Jem graffiti remained on walls where she had been vilified before her death.
Anthony considered attending to say one final farewell but changed his mind. He wasn’t ready for her to leave his life just yet. A journalist reporting from the scene made comparisons to the aftermath of the death of the Princess of Wales, King William’s mother. Anthony trawled through online archives to understand the reference and conceded there were definitely parallels.
He became fascinated by interviews with grieving fans expressing their collective outrage at the treatment of Jem and blaming targeted social media campaigns for driving her to her death. ‘Freedom for All is to blame for this,’ shouted one girl into the newsreader’s microphone. ‘They claim they’re a party fighting for equality but they’re killers. The Government needs to cancel groups like that. What happened to Jem is murder.’
Anthony couldn’t argue with that.
There were Jem’s detractors too, although they were receiving less airtime. Depending on who you listened to, Jem was either a tragic heroine, a saviour, the ultimate feminist, a warrior, an everywoman, a campaigner, a sacrificial lamb, the devil’s mouthpiece, a victim or a saint. And to Anthony, she was all of them and more.
He turned the volume up on another screen where a Government spokesman he recognized appeared in the studio paying lip service with soundbites like ‘such a tragedy’ and ‘a terrible waste’ before promising ‘a full and frank discussion about the role social media and other political parties may have played in Jem Jones’ death.’ Anthony knew this was more than just Government rhetoric. It would in all likelihood use this as an excuse to clamp down on freedom of speech. In death as she was in life, Jem would become the figurehead for those with an agenda, used up and spat out when the next big story came along. It was unfair. He had grown to want more for her than that.
But he knew all too well that Jem couldn’t be reasoned with and she didn’t care how unfairly the Act treated people. She could be as unfeeling as the Government she represented. So when he was issued with the kill notice, he knew it was for the greater good.
Anthony diverted his attention towards another screen. A server hidden somewhere in east Europe stored the coded data behind thousands of Bots: the software applications that ran automated tasks across the internet. They had all been programmed with one aim – to make Jem’s life as miserable as possible. They created spam accounts that filled the comments sections across her social media with obscenities and libellous accusations. There had been threats to kill her; parody accounts fabricated to mock her and fake news to spread about her.
In terms of reach, the most successful of these deeply personal attacks featured Jem being caught on camera slapping a child in a park who had accidentally kicked a football at her. Footage captured the ball hitting her shoulder, making her spill a cup of coffee over herself. Jem’s violent assault had sent the child running to his mother and she had been filmed by another park user running away before the angry parent could confront her.
It was, however, a Deepfake video, where a person or existing image has been replaced and manipulated with somebody else’s computer-generated image. Everyone in Jem Jones’ slap video was an actor paid to play out the scene, including Jem’s part. Her likeness had been projected on to the woman playing her. Such technology had advanced so successfully over the last decade that even computer programming and body language experts found it impossible to tell the difference between a fake clip and a real one. Three cast members of last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner were Deepfakes. However, such was the potential danger of this software, its use without a licence had become a criminal offence in many countries. Spotting and reporting them was even part of the British school curriculum.
Once the clip became viral, a furious Jem went public with denials and threats of legal action against anyone who reposted the clip. But it had already gained so much momentum that it was impossible to police. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t universally believed, there were enough people out there who accepted it as the truth.
It was only the beginning of Jem’s troubles. Picking on her with memes and GIFs became a sport and people tuned in to her Vlog to watch her unravel. If there had been a more ruthless, sustained and successful attempt at destroying a reputation, Anthony was unaware of it. And Jem had no idea that none of it was real.
He pressed his thumbprint against a pad attached to a desk drawer before it opened, then repeated the action with a metal box inside it. He removed the object it contained, a dark grey, Ruger GP100 1705 revolver. It weighed less than others he had tested before Jem’s death but was equally as powerful to kill at point-blank range. He checked each of the six chambers to ensure they were empty and released the safety catch. He drew the weapon to his left temple, then closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Next, he placed the barrel under his chin, then in the centre of his forehead, his right temple and finally his crown. Only when he was satisfied did he return the weapon to the drawer and lock it again.
Being surrounded by so many versions of Jem on the screens around him was exhausting. So he turned them all off, sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. This might be the only break he got in his schedule for the foreseeable future. And even then he’d been warned by his employer that it wouldn’t last long. The next project was already being discussed. And although he didn’t know what to expect from it, it was likely to be as morally equivocal as murdering the most loved – and hated – Influencer in the country.
12
Roxi
‘I can’t hold my tongue any longer,’ began Roxi, her voicebrittle. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a tissue.
‘If you’re visiting my channel expecting me to talk about relationships or this week’s hero products, then I apologize. Because today, there’s something more important I need to get off my chest.’
She paused to take a deep breath. ‘As you all know by now, we in the Influencing community recently lost one of our own. The talented, wonderful, and inspirational Jem Jones was driven to take her own life. Trolls made this poor woman’s life a misery, hounding her just because she had a different viewpoint to theirs. The attacks on Jem went far beyond expressing an alternative opinion. It was a campaign of orchestrated, relentless abuse with a devastating outcome.
‘I cannot help but think that, had Jem been a man, he would not have faced that same level of hatred and spite. It’s ordinary women like you and me they’re trying to silence. We are the people Jem represented, and therefore we owe it to her to show these bullies that they will not win. And it’s why I’m urging you all to make your voices heard and to fight back.’
Roxi reached across the kitchen table to press the stop button on her phone. She removed the device from the tripod and appraised what she had recorded so far. There could be improvements. Perhaps she shouldn’t try to divide the sexes? She reapplied a menthol stick sparsely under her eyes and blinked hard until they moistened. She’d read about the process actors used to induce tears and had ordered one online. Then she dabbed at her lips with a balm. They felt peculiar without the recently dissolved fillers she was so used to, but Jem had prided herself on her natural look and now so would Roxi.
She rewound the on-screen autocue, hit record and began her speech again with some tweaks. This time the tears fell quickly and she wiped them away with her fingers instead of a tissue. It made her emotions appear less rehearsed.
‘None of us are completely innocent though,’ she added. ‘We all saw what Jem was going through but none of us actively did anything to try and stop it. We could have sent her messages of support, told her how much we loved her and reported the accounts that were attacking her. But we didn’t. We sat idly by, relieved it wasn’t us under attack. Shame on me and shame on all of us.
‘To everyone out there who sent Jem a nasty Tweet, who shared the appalling fake videos of her and who created memes and GIFs to humiliate her, your collective actions drove someone to their death. As a fellow Vlogger, Influencer and as a human being with a heart, I cannot sit idly by and say and do nothing – or let this happen again. We need change.
