On Line Hate
Posted by: JamieWednesday on 10 August 2013
Just read Caroline Criado-Perez' piece in The New Statesman about her recent twitter experiences.
Now we've all seen on line 'banter' go a few steps too far, even on a rather civilised forum such as this. That I see as a ramping up of emotions, the need to win out some how, similar to old pub debates. It usually seems to die down fairly swiftly after a little time and thought and it's rare to see real intended vitriol.
But I cannot for the life of me fathom what goes through the heads of people who feel the needs to send direct messages such as those she received. On what planet, does someone think that subjecting a person to such an ordeal, such fear and terror is a good thing? As she says, what does she do now?
Many people are essentially stupid.
This notion pretty much rules my existence in the world at large. My wife and I say it a little differently -- "People are idiots."
NOTE the following has NO connection to above picture.
George previous post was just a bit of banter, don't take every thing so much to heart.
You give this place a totally different slant and most enjoyable it is too.
Howard
A-ny-way. Not like a post on the forum to digress in any way....
Looking back, I think my post was more about why some people would feel the need to be so vile to someone else, in this instance via connected media, as opposed to the use of electronic communication itself.
Personally I think electronic contact via email and a forum is great, as the 'conversations' can include many people and can last as long as needed, bit like extended hours in a pub.
I too though have little/no interest in social media of the facebook/twitter sort. Most of it seems utterly pointless and I'm not remotely interested in what cousin Annie got up to on holiday in Tuscany. Unless she wanted to tell me directly, then I would listen politely and take it from there...
But it does seem 'easier' for many to be quite horrible to other people if they don't see them face to face and they often seem to have little sense of shame about the remarks, unless their 'mum' is brought into it. But even with the blanket of anonymity to lie under, I just can't understand it still.