NICOLE KOBIE
Oh for the good old days of constructive comments: there are advantages to not trying to talk to everyone in the world at once
Oh for the good old days of constructive comments: there are advantages to not trying to talk to everyone in the world at once.
Social media isn’t very nice. Twitter is full of people taking offence where none was meant, whilst others seek to offend as many as possible. Facebook is no better, not least because the trolls are often your own family and friends.
There’s an easy solution, of course: don’t use such sites. That’s easier said than done, but I’m certainly spending less and less time on social media, despite the lockdown-induced need for conversation sources external to my own living room/office.
And I have it better than many. Study after study shows that women get the worst abuse online, with the most intense and foul harassment saved for black women. I have been lucky enough to avoid death threats and doxxing, probably because I’m not particularly controversial with what I say online. That’s not some chilling effect of the threat of abuse; I just don’t see the point in arguing with strangers as surely no one’s opinion has ever progressed that way.
That said, I’m glad others do fill social media with opinions counter to the majority, as much of it needs to be heard. If someone’s a racist, Nazi, sexist jerk, they should be noted as such, but save the abuse for those who actually earn it.
Here’s a ridiculous example: I live in Tottenham in London, and there’s a new development going up diagonally opposite to our flat. On the Facebook ads for that housing block, which are inexplicably targeted at me, people leave the most foul comments about the neighbourhood I live in: it’s dirty, full of scummy people, crime-ridden
– none of which is true. And even if it were, if you’ve got nothing nice to say, as the adage goes, shut your face.
That’s the problem with Twitter, Facebook and the hellscape beneath online newspaper articles: anyone can comment. While such inclusion seems on the face of it a good thing, free-foralls rarely are. I miss forums dedicated to specific topics used by smaller groups of like-minded individuals; most of all, I miss the PC Pro online forum and comments section.
I’m not sure there’s ever been a more decent place online. I still remember the worst insult thrown at me in years of writing for the website: someone called me “Harriet Harman light”. That is a delightful criticism, and I assure you my feminism – as that’s what was being commented on – far exceeds Harman’s, so I wasn’t hurt but tickled.
And while I hardly needed defending from that lightweight lob, the subsequent comments did just that, not only backing me up but engaging with the argument in the article. It was a nice conversation, regardless of which side you came down on. And that was the norm.
That allowed me the distinct privilege of learning on the job. If I made a mistake or failed to include an interesting fact, the comments section would pitch in, giving me the benefit of the doubt that my intent was always accuracy, without abusing me. It gave me the space to explore new areas in my writing, knowing that I had a safety net of experts improving my work, rather than tearing me down.
Part of the success of the online community that constituted the PC Pro forums was that it belonged to the reader, and you decided to make it a nice place. Perhaps we need more smaller spaces, and a bit more self-selection.
To cite a famous example: many of my friends in Canada are into knitting and there’s a website called Ravelry that, in 2019, banned any patterns referencing Trump. This sparked an exodus of Republican knitters.
On one hand, that sounds exclusionary. Why have the internet connecting everyone, only to disconnect from those we disagree with? But if we accept that some people will always disagree and that we don’t always want to argue, perhaps sometimes it’s nice to have a space for people who think vaguely the same as you.
Ten years ago, this was dubbed a “filter bubble”, and we worried we would never be able to broaden our minds by only listening to people who reinforced what we already think. But I’d argue it’s more like a house party: you invite people you like, not people you don’t, and certainly not a bunch of random people off the street who may or may not be Russian trolls.
Perhaps this is why so many journalists are opting to share their unedited thoughts via newsletters, a one-way broadcast with no clear route for readers to lob back their own opinions. I still want to know what you think – but only you, not every single person with an internet connection, misinformed opinion and an abusive attitude.
Your comments gave me space to explore new areas in my writing, knowing that I had a safety net of experts improving my work
It’s more like a house party: you invite people you like, not people you don’t, and certainly not a bunch of random people off the street