Coronation Street fans are convinced they’ve uncovered the identity of the person cruelly trolling Maria Connor online – and it’s closer to home than you might think.
The hairdresser turned politician, played by Samia Longchambon, has been having a rough time in recent weeks after making it her mission to try and make the Manchester air cleaner for residents on the Cobbles.
In her latest campaign to try and protect the environment, Maria used her role as a local councillor to introduce a new recycling bin to help reduce the amount of waste going to landfill – however she didn’t consult the refuse workers first, who objected to having their work load increased without any additional pay.
This lead to the bin men going on strike – and soon left Maria at the mercy of cruel trolls online, who used one of her speeches to turn it into a viral video.
Yet this was only the beginning of the nightmare for the mum of one, after trolls escalated things further and created a deep fake video, where they had photoshopped her head onto a naked woman’s body, and made it appear as if she were engaged in sexual acts.
Mortified and humiliated by the video, Maria was left reeling after she only discovered its existence after her son Liam had been shown it at school.
Taking to twitter, many fans have been left fuming over the storyline – with some even speculating that the culprit may be closer to home than Maria thinks.
"#Corrie it's Gary texting Maria he doesn't want you to be a powerful women," suggested one fan.
Another thought that it was too low for Gary to be the culprit himself, but argued he may still be linked to the trolling.
They wrote: "I wonder if someone is targeting Maria to get back at Gary for something? #Corrie @itvcorrie."
Aside from the guesses, many other fans took to social media to praise ITV for tackling a growing issue affecting many people around the country today.
"The simple fact is, ignoring trolls no longer works,” wrote one fan before adding: “Don’t be telling victims 'ignore them, they'll go away' because trolls don't go away.
“More needs to be done to stop online abusers. It can go on for years and years. #CoronationStreet."
Another added: "Feel so sorry for Maria. Getting trolled there is zero need to troll someone. If you don't like someone then scroll past what they post etc #CoronationStreet #Corrie."
A third fan also agreed, writing: "That's the thing with trolls, they'll do/say anything online just to get a reaction from anyone, best thing to do is ignore them. #Corrie."
Talking about how her character Maria is feeling, Samia explained: "She’s absolutely mortified. One, that it even exists, and two, that [her son] Liam has seen this video and thinks that it’s her – these deep-fakes actually look like the person.
"So she’s absolutely mortified thinking that everyone’s going to think that she’s been doing pornography. She thinks that everyone who voted her in as councillor will see this video and think that she’s someone that she’s not."
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