Dobbyn social media backlash highlights ‘polarisation’
Social media’s propensity to polarise has again been demonstrated in the controversy over a famous Kiwi musician’s tweets, an expert says.
When Sir Dave Dobbyn got into an exchange with highprofile Twitter personality Hamish Keith about New Zealand’s Covid-19 vaccination divide, it quickly became the most trending topic on social media.
Social scientist Jess Berentson-Shaw said this example of an exchange of ‘‘valid reflections’’ between two people accelerating into a widespread controversy, showed how social media platforms thrived on such division.
When Keith tweeted: ‘‘The unvaccinated will feel isolated and picked on. So they bloody well should,’’ Dobbyn replied: ‘‘I thought we’re fighting Covid, not humanity.’’
Keith responded by saying unvaccinated people were putting everyone else’s health at risk, which was a ‘‘possibly lethal’’ point of view.
Dobbyn replied with his opinion on the Government’s response: ‘‘But one could suspect mandate’s [sic] and authoritarianism could be far more lethal in the medium term.’’
Some on Twitter observed the backlash to Dobbyn’s statements and labelled him a villain. Others talked about how Dobbyn was speaking common sense yet ‘‘vicious unhinged NZ Twitter mobs come out from their caves to immolate him’’.
Dobbyn’s Twitter account has since been deleted, but he later clarified his decision on vaccination by posting a short statement on his Facebook page yesterday. ‘‘I’m double vaccinated. I encourage it for everyone. But I call out the unkindness directed at those who haven’t yet taken the step,’’ he wrote.
The musician’s manager, Lorraine Barry, said yesterday that Dobbyn did not feel the need to expand on his Facebook comments.
Vaccine mandates for teachers and healthcare workers were announced earlier this month. At the time, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said a mandate was required to make sure all were protected.
‘‘While most people working in these sectors are already fully or partially vaccinated we can’t leave anything to chance and are making it mandatory,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s not an easy decision, but we need the people who work with vulnerable communities who haven’t yet been vaccinated to take this extra step.’’
Berentson-Shaw, who has studied the effects of social media polarisation on people’s decisionmaking processes, said social media platforms were set up to push people to extremes and feed antagonism.
‘‘Social media represents the extreme positions people would take on issues.
‘‘Money is made from these interactions in which people get incredibly angry and talk past each other very quickly.’’