Real friends always trump virtual hate
ONLINE Safety legislation has been law now for six months. According to its promotion it makes the UK a global leader as ‘the safest place in the world to be online’.
The act primarily covers prohibition for publishing self-harm material, banning platforms for trading child sexual abuse images, specifying age restriction for adult websites, and preventing underage children from creating social media accounts.
Designed to crack down on terrorist activity, it’s also aimed at curbing hate speech and bullying.
Cyberbullying comes in a number of guises, often as a result of some petty argument that gathers pace, like a snowball picking up followers who take sides by speaking out or ‘liking’ a post.
However, the Online Safety Act stays clear of engaging in such disputes leaving service platforms and group administrators to sort out.
It goes without saying that the primary purpose of social networking is about connecting people, making friends, and helping to create and organise communities with interests in just about any topic.
Facebook alone boasts over 2.23 billion active users. Globally that’s some level of bonding, but it hardly represents friendship.
Many people in Stoke-on-trent are signed up to Facebook, where infinite numbers of community groups have grown to become influential and representative institutions.
In Burslem alone there are at least five groups including the long-established Our Burslem, renamed with an appendage ‘Mother Town’ since Facebook closed the original down in 2022.
It currently has a membership of just under 8,000.
With some 2,000 subscribers, Burslem Matters is another group. And a similar number are signed up to Burslem Past and Present. Then there’s a new group called Our Burslem Official. Set up just a couple of weeks ago when it recruited 4,000 members in four days.
At a glance you might assume that these two groups together would have some 12,000 members with the same mission and the same purpose, and probably the same followers. So why have two?
The fact is Burslem Official has broken away from Mother Town as a result of a falling out.
It is unnecessary to give details of this altercation.
Facebook has been good at encouraging friendship.
On Facebook everyone is a ‘friend’, although these are not friendships in the customary way.
And, as many have discovered, Facebook is also good at making enemies, something the Online Safety legislation has no interest in at all.
Nonetheless there is open concern for the growth in overarching belligerence and highhandedness which outwardly adds to a worrying decline in face-to-face communication.
In my opinion, cyber-snide and online sniping is the main cause in eroding oldfashioned adult friendly and convivial conversation.
In the real world, we are careful in what we say. But in our quarantined cyberworld we throw care to the wind, puffing-up our biodata, passing judgement, putting others in their place.
We don’t care that this affects the wellbeing and self-esteem of others whose reactions often lead to further resentment and hurt.
As an example, a glance through some of the hundreds of posts about Port Vale’s relegation, justified or not, shows a level of malice aimed at individuals formerly moderated collectively at fans’ open meetings.
There’s no reason why breakaway Our Burslem Official can’t come together again with Our Burslem Mother Town.
Their subscribers will doubtlessly be physically engaged in next week’s street festival stimulating the town’s trade and community culture.
While social media platforms are built to shape friendships through shared interests and values, they can also lead to the polarisation of opinion without offering the benefit of restorative properties. This can be set to right by liberating the fist of cyber-anger and replacing it with the gladhand of open friendship.