Jury is still out on shamed councillor
Expulsion is a matter for her party
I don’t have a single “friend” on Facebook.
Not a solitary soul on the planet “likes” me and if I’ve been “shared”
. . . then can I please have my half of whatever it was back again?
The world’s most powerful social networking tool was launched among Harvard university students in 2004.
By January this year, it had 2.2 billion users . . . and I’m pleased to say I’m not one of them. Why?
Well, don’t ask me . . . ask shamed South Ayrshire SNP councillor Julie Dettbarn.
She’s deleted her Facebook account after her use of a racist term was revealed.
Julie has found out the hard way that while having hundreds of “friends” might be some kind of significant social yardstick, it just takes one friend to show the wrong thing to the wrong person – and suddenly you’re up a well- known creek without a paddle!
A former editor once advised me to open a Twitter account – to create interest in what I was writing.
I pointed out that with Twitter – you were only a misguided tweet away from looking like a misguided twit.
And the best way to create interest in my writing was to write about things readers were interested in!
The subject was never raised again.
In the wrongs hands – or just imprudent hands – social media devices like Facebook and Twitter can be devastating.
A leak from Hilary Clinton’s Facebook account – just weeks before the US Presidential election – is now universally recognised as having been damaging enough to cost her the White House.
And her conqueror, Donald Trump, now uses Twitter for everything – from threatening North Korea with “fire and fury” . . . to praising its despotic leader!
Not even Facebook itself will know how many marriages have been ended, how many friendships wrecked and how many careers have been ruined by the wrong message falling into the wrong hands.
In the unfortunate case of councillor Julie Dettbarn – the jury is still out.
If the charge is carelessly using a profoundly distasteful racist phrase in a private message that was meant to stay private – the finding is guilty.
If the charge is that Julie Dettbarn is a vile, bigoted, hate- filled racist ... then it’s NOT guilty.
Ms Dettbarn is 56 and of an age to remember when the “woodpile” idiom was - if not in common usage – then not considered seriously offensive.
The phrase has been a film title, featured in a ‘ Porky Pig’ Looney Tunes cartoon and used by Agatha’s Christie’s Hercule Poirot.
It was spoken in Parliament as recently as last year by Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris in a reference to Brexit.
The MP later said the controversial reference was “unintentional” and apologised for any offence caused.
Prime Minister Theresa May punished her with a very public suspension from the party . . . which was quietly lifted days later before an important Commons vote!
Julie Dettbarn has made the same apologies and suffered the same suspension.
She has also found that those five misplaced words have cost her almost £ 5000 a year in committee chair allowances.
In my book, she’s admitted the crime and is doing her time . . . her return to the SNP’s ranks should be at the party’s discretion.
MSP Brian Whittle’s efforts to turn this into a resignation issue are misplaced.
Given some of the strokes the SNP have pulled since seizing power – there are much bigger fish for Brian to fry.
Meanwhile, Ms Dettbarn should familiarise herself with idioms like “fly in the ointment” and “skeleton in the closet”?
She’ll find they’re inoffensive . . . and less expensive.
Those five misplaced words have cost her almost £ 5000 a year in committee allowances