Be responsible with your social media posts

Remember the days when people believed the advent of social media heralded a new age of communication and enlightenment?

To an extent, it did. Generally speaking there is no excuse now for being an uninformed citizen.

So much information is freely available for anyone with even basic internet service — everything including city council minutes to community event postings is easily accessible.

Notices of arrests by police, day-by-day court schedules and the names of people called to appear, dates of public hearings examining issues like environmental impact, neighbourhood zoning, conflict of interest complaints — they’re all there, at least in limited terms.

People now have an immense amount of knowledge at their fingertips, far more than at any other time. That’s a good thing. But humans being humans, we’ve abused that. Facebook, Twitter and sites like that can be pretty foul places if you dare scroll through some of the comments made on people’s posts.

Depending on who you choose to follow, it can be like a negativity bath of anger, sarcasm and suspicion.

People say things to one another online they wouldn’t dream of saying to the same person face to face. It’s easier to make threats and to feel threatened in this world.

Now we’re seeing more and more cases of the police being dragged into this.

Earlier this year, for instance, Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff alerted police when an online critic called for protests against him, including at his parents’ home.

The critic, Rob Gill of St. Catharines, also posted Oosterhoff’s parents’ address and phone number.

Officers spoke with Gill but it appears no legal action was taken.

Later, Oosterhoff said he feared for his family’s safety; Gill denied calling for violence, saying, “I called for protest. I would be the first to object to any kind of violence directed at Oosterhoff and his family.” An understandable misunderstanding, perhaps? A similar instance happened last week involving animal rights activist Phil Demers and Marineland.

Demers is a former animal trainer at the park, and the two sides have sparred legally for the past six years with each side suing the other in cases that are ongoing.

A six-word tweet by Demers — “Life is short. Steal a walrus” — was enough for Marineland to complain to Niagara Regional Police, who sent officers to his home in Chippawa. Again, no legal action appears to have been taken. In a statement, the NRP would only say: “We can share that with the prevalence of social media, when possible our officers inform and educate the public on what could be potentially deemed criminal in nature.

“As could be expected, an increasing volume of calls involve an element relating to social media … our officers will make every effort to speak to all involved parties to get an understanding of the situation.”

We believe Gill when he said he wasn’t trying to inspire violence (though we can’t condone urging people to protest at a politician’s parents’ home). And did Demers really want people to steal walruses? He said it was a catchy phrase he hoped would grab people’s attention, but that he wasn’t actually urging anyone to sneak a walrus out of the park under their jacket. But these days, well-meaning protests can turn ugly. And people at the far fringes of the animal rights movement may well show up one day and try to kidnap a walrus.

It’s an angry world, and social media sends messages worldwide without discriminating between those who see it for what it is — a tweet made in the heat of the moment — or others who take it as a call for action.

Keep protesting, it’s your right. But be responsible and think twice before you post online, is all we’re saying.