‘Sick of being passive’: Tony Armstrong launches ‘spell-check app for racists’
Tony Armstrong has a message for people looking to troll him online: please spell your insults correctly.
In a comedy sketch posted to his social media page, Armstrong fronts a satirical campaign for a fictional app, Furore – a “grammar app keeping racists safe online by helping them spell their outbursts correctly”.
The three-minute sketch features Armstrong in full salesman mode, displaying how Furore is a handy tool “guaranteed to save you from all kinds of digital faux pas” before showing the app in action. (For example: welfair scammer becomes welfare scammer.)
The former ABC News Breakfast presenter stars in a new comedy sketch that advertises a spell-check app for online trolls looking to insult him.
Credit: Screenshot
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Armstrong explains: “I would love to live in an Australia where I don’t experience targeted online racism, but with that seemingly out of reach, I would at least like these venomous words to be spelled correctly.”
The former ABC News Breakfast presenter and Gamilaroi man is no stranger to receiving abuse online, regularly sharing screenshots on Instagram of the racist abuse he has received.
Armstrong finished up on News Breakfast in October, the same week that ABC director Justin Stevens issued a statement defending him, after the presenter was the target of racial abuse on social media.
“Tony Armstrong is one of the ABC’s best and most talented presenters. This week he has again been targeted on social media and in public comments on news websites in a despicable way,” Stevens said at the time.
In an interview with this masthead, Armstrong explained that his personal experience proved a fertile breeding ground for his sketch.“I guess I was sick of being passive and just waiting to get piled on, now and then; I’m just fed up,” he said.
