this has been written very quickly in the last hour as a reaction to something, I will probably rewrite it or at least read through it and republish later, but you can proof read and enjoy all my errors if you would like. (Hmm, I bet I spelt ‘their’ as ‘there’ once, shame awaits)
The internet is a fabulous new library of Alexandria and a squalid cellar of photocopied hate pamphlets and damp pornography. According to some book or other I read, Alexander the Great insisted that any ship that arrived in Alexandria must hand over any documents, books or scholarly works that it had on it so that they could be copied and placed in the library. The library would become the greatest gathering of knowledge in the world at that time, and it would be many centuries after is sacking before such a resource would exist again. Those who have seen Carl Sagan’s Cosmos will know the story of how the library was destroyed by St Cyril and it’s chief librarian, Hypatia, was flayed to death (since I first wrote this, some have told me that Sagan’s portrayal of Cyril may not be too accurate) . The internet is the modern version, but also contains anything kept under a saucy sailor’s bunk, some off mackerel from a barrel and anything lewd carved into the hull of the ship by a rampant carpenter.[1]
The instant availability of information, as well as instant access to individuals, does come with some minor costs. When information is printed in a book, one imagines that there has been rigorous work done to ensure that it is true or that at least there is enough evidence to argue its truth, though this may not always be the case. To publish on the internet, as my blog clearly demonstrates, sometimes only haste and intent is required. As I warn at the beginning of my current tour, “if I say anything of interest about science, do not share it with your friends until you have googled it first”. And one search is not enough. We now know certainty is rarely possible, but one internet source is surely not enough to sit comfortably with any information.
The instant access to people is where the other issue rears up. Getting into the driver’s seat of a car is said to dehumanize us, though I wouldn’t know as I have never taken the risk, fearing that my small amount of humanity may not remain intact if I attempted driving. As the container of a car can turn someone into a skin/metal Robocop of abuse and ire, so the solitary yet highly social internet can turn humans into poison pen scribblers and gleeful guillotine watchers. Once you are writing to someone who is an avatar or maybe only a font, once we no longer have to eye people during conversation, all social niceties can be thrown aside. The sober can behave like angry drunks without the expense of Greek brandy. Sometimes a little Metaxa may get in the system anyway and people too drunk to talk can still type, if not spell, at 3am. It can be the virtual, anti- “you’re my best mate” syndrome.
The hardest thing to maintain as all the colours and sound of the internet swamp you in your bedroom is that you may still be talking to a human being, even if you normally would feel uncomfortable doing that in your current attire of underpants and an old Depeche Mode T shirt, surrounded by digestive crumbs and dried body detritus. To my eyes, Twitter can be the worst place for dehumanization. When I first received vivid abuse I was taken aback. I am not particularly well known and, as James Delingpole has described me in one if his articles about how unfair it is that I have made a joke about him, I am “a minor comedian”. I am so easily avoidable it was a shock to find out I had crept enough into someone’s consciousness that they felt they must express their loathing. As time has progressed, I realize some people might seek me out as I can be a little bolshy and facetious at what I see as pseudoscience and I can seem a little left wing at times. The first abuser came across like a character from Marat/Sade with a hint of that man in Silence of the Lambs who said he smelt Jodie Foster. Intrigued and worried, I look at his other tweets and saw that I had ended up on a list of people to abuse that include Katie Price , Jimmy Carr and John Prescott. I think I replied to that person with something about wishing death upon them in a grain vat, but in a jovial manner. I am now used to the odd direct insult and will either ignore and block, or send a jolly “you are a cheeky little thing” reply, and then block. Smiling in the face of extreme abuse and adopting an airy manner is something I learnt during my first appearance at the Belfast Empire.
The most unpleasant way of using tweeter is not the direct spit in the face, but the “I know you are here, and I am going to demean you without looking in your eye”. This is the “ had a great weekend, only ruined by seeing that unbearably shit @robinince”
This seems to me cowardly and gloating with a hint of the playground bully about it. Some people know what they are doing, but as I have found out lately, other people really don’t see what is wrong. Oddly, it seems some are not doing it to hurt or provoke. This morning a friend of mine retweeted a comment which said “I found @???’s talk disappointing” etc. I ended up in conversation with the tweeter. He defended himself by saying he was opening up discourse, but I explained that opening up discourse is “@????? I was at your talk last night and was disappointed by what I saw as a continual category error”. I then asked him if he would be comfortable in a circle of people, where you are loudly criticizing in the third person someone in that circle. He considered it was not the same, but to me, it is very, very similar. This person is not a less human, less feeling version of themselves because they are now on the internet.
I have failed at this many times myself, but I am trying to get better, learning to be human seems to take ages and new technology provides new challenges. This does not mean you should not engage with people on the internet, that to me is one of its delights, even if it can be uncomfortable at times.it can be interesting to continue to receive feedback about work beyond my conversation with audience members at the bar afterwards. Sometimes it can be worrying and sometimes it can lead to rethinks and rewriting. I have been accused of being a twitter bully by two different Telegraph bloggers in pieces they have written for their high circulation newspapers. Personally, I did not feel I was bullying, I asked a total of four entirely genuine questions about why they held their opinions on certain things they tweeted, to them that was bullying (ad hominem attacks in the newspapers are apparently not of their writing is anything to go by).
When one made an appearance in Horizon that many people felt was rather poor, I wrote to people who I knew who were including his twittername in the general ribaldry and suggested that might stooping a little. Then he wrote another piece about the minor comedian who was so cruel to him for doing a joke.
In stand up I have tried to get better at avoiding the ad hominem attack. I wonder what I would feel uncomfortable saying if someone I was joking about was in the room. In my current show I believe there is nothing I would skip because hopefully the intention behind the joke is more than just laughing in someone’s face (more of that should I ever get around to writing a blog on that popular topic of offensive comedy)
I attempt to keep my abuse jovial and informed. There are things I said about Melanie Phillips, yes even Melanie Phillips, that I would feel far from comfortable saying on stage now (even though the imagery was a reasonably joyful fusion of the works of John Waters and David Cronenberg).
In stand up and on the internet I try to maintain empathy, but that doesn’t mean I won’t fail from time to time, or even frequently.
Empathy is an impressive achievement in any species, it is what can raise us above some of the other animals that fuck and kill and just survive. I imagine it has always been a battle to attain and maintain empathy, but in the comfort some of us are lucky enough to have, and I would hope pretty much anyone who has the time and access to technology that reading this blog requires has enough comfort, empathy needs to thrive.[2] The internet is a playground and a library, but it also has the potential to be bedlam cage. We should aspire to be more like Hypatia than St Cyril.
Footnotes
Carl Sagan on the Library of Alexandria http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jixnM7S9tLw
for an alternative viewpoint on twitter abuse, bullying etc you can find a discussion on the http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/ forum
This autumn I am back solo touring, starting in Liverpool, and also touring with Josie Long and Grace Petrie, starting in Glasgow, all such dates are at http://www.robinince.com
[1] As I was writing this I received a tweet telling me Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation was available online, it is indeed an amazing place this internet.
Robinince's Blog 
Good points, and I agree with the general thrust, but what do you think about indirect praise on twitter? Eg. “Just been reading @xxx’s book – it’s great”. It seems to me that, in that instance, you’re telling a crowd how much you like x ‘s work, and indirectly including them. This doesn’t seem as bad, to me, but the only difference is you’re not being negative about them.
I think what I would do socially. I might offer constructive criticism to their face and would compliment them if I liked it, but less likely to declare their work awful
In the spirit of genuine curiosity, why is positive feedback okay but negative feedback is to be blocked and ignored? (To be clear, I am not defending any of these vituperative commenters, I am sincere in my inquisitiveness.) It seems to me that is the price of the technology. In the past it was impossible for everyone to be a critic and today it is not only possible, it is a reality. And I’m sure in the beginnings of your career, you took the same attitude to critics as you do to Internet trolls: ignore the bad and accept the good as gospel. (I just finished reading this post from Graham Linehan [ http://glinner.posterous.com/im-not-changing-a-word-of-this ] in which he makes the claim that even the dumbest person in the room who opens his or her mouth with criticism should not be dismissed. They would not have spoken up if there wasn’t something wrong. I would add to that that it could turn out there was only something wrong with them.)
As to your assertion that people should only say online what they would say in real life, I believe that most people do. I’ve met lots of people who say stupid and mean things on a regular basis. (I would include myself in that category from time to time). If they had a chance to meet a celebrity, they would probably say the same thing to their face as they would online. (Think heckler.)
Anyway, my feeling is that it is the price of life on the Internet. We should never stop striving for civil discourse, but the expectation that one day we will all be as polite as dinner party guests online is one that will probably never be met. The Internet is humanity distilled into digital form, warts and all.
you are very wrong about “ignore the bad and accept the good as gospel” – most people I know do quite the opposite, nice things are lucky, bad reviews reveal the truth (this depends on personality type so I can only speak for me and some people I know well enough). my thought is – I see a play/band/whatever, if i do not enjoy it, when it happens someone involved in the whatever walks in the pub I am in, I do not have a strong urge to approach that person and declare “you are shit”. If I have loved the whatever, I feel a stronger urge to go over and say “that was great”. that is how I feel and most people I know approach such situations, but maybe that is not representative after all. I do no know.
as for Glinner’s claim about the “dumbest person in the room”, I wonder why he has ever blocked anyone then. (I have not read this piece so I do not know the full context) – some people send a message saying “you are a cunt and I wish you died of cancer”, I have friends who have received worse than that and I have to, am I meant to ponder, “hmm, maybe that man has a point about me getting cancer, I’ll mull that over”?
I definitely don’t think you should go out and contract cancer just because some troll tells you to. That’s obviously worthy of dismissal. I’m not a public figure. I’ve never been heckled. I’ve never been called a cunt by a stranger online. That’s mostly due to the fact that I have not put myself out there. It seems to me, (I could be wrong, I’m not afraid to admit it), that the more you expose yourself, the more you put yourself out there, the more chances there are of someone seeing and exploiting that vulnerability with a tragically placed call of “wanker” or “cunt” or some other insulting appellation. It is the unfortunate cost of being human.
You said “I see a play/band/whatever, if i do not enjoy it, when it happens someone involved in the whatever walks in the pub I am in, I do not have a strong urge to approach that person and declare “you are shit”. If I have loved the whatever, I feel a stronger urge to go over and say “that was great”.” I feel the same way. But there are those who don’t. The Internet (and indeed the world) is full of people who believe that their opinion is of supreme importance. Who am I to tell them they’re wrong? Humans are humans.
I have a friend who is a hip-hop artist. He performs with a DJ who provides the beats and accompaniment. The DJ is horrible. Every time I have seen the two of them perform, it is like it’s the DJ’s first performance, so hapless and bumbling he is. My friend, the lyricist and rapper would do well to find new accompaniment. I have never said anything to him. I always say, “You were great.” Is that doing him a service? Has he gained anything by me telling him only half the truth and sparing him from negative criticism?
Anyway, thanks for the reply and I apologize for the “ignore the bad and accept the good as gospel”. As I say, I’m no public figure. I’ve never been publicly criticized. Must be a bizarre feeling.
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races. –Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson
It’s not that people block people and hate them if they give negative feedback. They welcome constructive and well written criticisms. But when you’re on twitter and you’re being a dick and calling someone an asshole for their work or go somewhere extreme with that, THAT’S when you’re blocked and hated. Because then you’re not really giving them proper feedback, you’re just telling them you hate them. You don’t make any good points. I doubt anyone would ever meet a celebrity and be/sound as hateful as they would be online. Maybe they might, but again, that’s not really any feedback.
I’m always comforted when I find out a responsible adult has got through their life without having to learn to drive. Cars are terrifying and rubbish. Thanks Robin. Take that, My Dad.
Me too! My complete and utter lack of any sense of direction only makes the prospect of driving even more terrifying.
Great blog as usual, really interesting stuff.
I follow a bunch of comics on twitter. I heard about most of them because, instead of #ff, they fired off an insult about said comedian, offensive enough to be hysterical. I see how it is. But isn’t it self defense to unfollow those who raise your blood pressure? Raise the quality bar. Lower the irritainment bar. Problem solved with a bit of healthy self interest.
The corporeal disconnect is a responsibility that many wear lightly. Most of us (that have it) relish that cyber-spirit-freedom – the fact that I can go anywhere, discuss anything and talk to anyone instantly is amazing.
In fact, come to think of it, the anonymity is a bit like invisibility and the access to everyone is like the power of flight or better still, teleportation.
Hang on, “the internet” has given us superpowers!
And you and I both know that with great power comes great responsibility.
If you gave the average man these superpowers he would use them, initially, for one thing: He would go out and look, without fear of rejection or reproach at naked women (or men), he would stare long and hard at things that turn him on, safely invisible.
That’s what men do on the internet. Everyday. Millions and Millions of them. But most people then return to the physical world, to family and friends and work and all the wonderfully solid reality around us.
We interact.
Those that retreat into cyber-space don’t have that validation of self. They cannot actually touch anything, they can’t affect the images they see on the screen. The things, perhaps, they covet.
Having all this power and feeling powerless?
Unable to create impact?
Unable to create at all?
And then they see people who have used this extraordinary web to reach out and touch people, people who are creating and sharing. Creating in the real world and then sharing online. People who are connecting. It’s something they have no confidence in doing themselves.
Personally, I think that the cyber-bullying and the trolling is an attempt to bridge that gap, an attempt to have an impact, a validation that they are not merely observers. To regain a little physicality by proxy, just enough to snipe or offend.
To provoke a reaction.
To create an impact.
Which is why, without exception, they should be ignored.
That is their Krptonite.
Great blog, and what a nice poem it got in response!
Another exceptional blog post which I think puts into words what many of us who use Twitter – particularly those of us who’ve been using it for ages – have been thinking for a long time. For many reasons, like it or not, Twitter *IS* a totally different comunication tool than any other in history. The ability to talk ot other people ABOUT someone and have them find out about it has never been so easy to do – and sometimes, to inadvertently upset someone totally random. Look, for example, at how a couple of years an American lady with the Twitter handle @theashes ended up getting embroiled in incredible exchanges because people did not realise that she had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the cricketing event. Many people respond on Twitter in ways that they never ever would in real life were they to meet the person face-to-face. It has also never been so easy for people to directly engage with, or talk AT their ‘heroes’ or ‘villains’ in such an interconnected and trackable way than it now is on Twitter. I firmly believe that the root of the problenm you describe lies in some people’s inability to understand or comprehend or ‘get’ Twitter. End of story. It’s not complex, in my opinion, it’s just that some people can’t handle the connectivity that twitter allows. Howwever, having said that, there are also a minority who are deliberately nasty in a ‘couldn’t-give-a-fig’ way. Also have you read this blog post which could almost be a companion piece to what you have written: http://t.co/glUqFbwh ?
“I think I replied to that person with something about wishing death upon them in a grain vat, but in a jovial manner.” I don’t know the context, dude, try this one; People die from suicide, I understand, not having experienced suicide myself:) http://www.rethink.org/talk/topic/7334-mate-crime-3/
um, what has people committing suicide got to do with that?
Context:”slim shady used for torture” +PLUS+
“He should be introduced to techno-dance. A few days of that and he’ll appreciate what repetition does to the human mind. 😉 is it offensive and do you agree with him?
i see, sorry, link did not come up when I looked at this on my phone
Or Kryptonite even.
This video shows just what can happen if you’re a bully. Think before you speak. Think before you act. Bystanders, you have the most power, use it in the right way. Uploaded by SxcSantaLilReindeer on Feb 11, 2012
Not without exception. For instance,If someone from BBC news, who are censoring the recent spike in suicide rates as a consequence of stringent welfare cuts. I think it is valid and acceptable for someone to express their anger towards them. Tell that to Nicky Campbell 🙂
I think there is a difference between someone being offended by art of some kind or other and someone being offended by policy
((“Link removed sorry PM if you must.” The same article, 3 days later, gain some unwelcome criticism and the link was removed voluntarily . 4me has an on going dispute with the mods by PM and wishes to discuss in ‘public’. He cannot respond to the mods in a locked topic. “hanging’s too good for them “. Bias ‘gang mentality’ is reinforced by the volunteer moderators. The context for him is chronology with all of the members via PM/DM tweets or wateva. membership for him means helping the moderators also. “He should be introduced to techno-dance. A few days of that and he’ll appreciate what repetition does to the human mind. ;)-Gaythud ” in relation to ,’slim shady used for torture’, is it offensive?))
I really don’t know what this means, sorry
I don’t necessarily think the problem with all of this is what is written, I think a lot of the problems is how it is read. It’s not like in films where someone reads a letter from an old loved one and the loved ones voice appears in their heads, that’s not how reading works. It’s your own inner voice you hear reading what is written rather than the voice of the writer, therefore a depressed person will read what is written with a depressed voice, a happy person with a happy voice and an insecure person with an insecure voice etc.
I’ve been writing you complete bollocks for years, but as you do not know me you can only read it to yourself in your own voice, sarcasm is lost, irony is lost, laughter is lost, playfulness is lost, knowing looks are lost, a single raised eyebrow is lost, all personal idiosyncrasys are lost. In the same way I can only read your blog with my inner voice.
Your twitter and blog never makes me angry, but i’m not an angry person so it wouldn’t make me angry as my inner voice doesn’t read it in an angry way, but if an angry person read your twitter or blog they will become angry no matter what you write. The problem is that when you reply even though your reply may be jovial and informative they are reading your reply with their angry inner voice so they will simply think you are attacking them no matter what you say, especially if they originally wrote something inflamatory.
You’re damned either way (or not, you being an athiest and all)
So no, you weren’t bullying, it was merely their own insecurities that made them feel bullied, that’s not your fault that’s their problem.
I think a lot of internet abuse is predominantly motivated by the joy some people have from simply abusing people secretly. a friend of mine had some incredibly vicious abuse but, via investigation, found the person’s name and workplace. when he rang the man at his office, there was moment of silence at the other end of the phone, followed by fear and apology.
I’ll try and explain my view by way of an anecdote.
A number of years ago I was at a student drama festival. I was young, impressionable and excited to be there. Over the first few days i saw some wonderful original plays and some great re-workings of some older works. Now I should explain that at this festival there was, each morning a critical feedback session, in a large theatre set up to be in the round ,where the cast, director, and sometimes the writer of each play performed the previous day would gather, and festival goers could sit in ask questions, and give criticism.
Mid-week I saw a play that I felt was sub-par and as we filed out of the theatre uttered the phrase ” well that was a bit crap” to the person standing next to me…. who turned out to be the director.
This woman saw that I was young, explained how she had directed the play and gave me the following advice; “go away think about why it was crap and ask me about it tomorrow.”
What I learnt was that it is inappropriate to give opinion as you leave a theatre in a large group of people, you don’t know who’s around you and whose feelings you could injure. Which is not to say that you can’t find appropriate places to give that criticism to the artist or performer. In fact the internet and twitter are almost built for it. However tweeting “@????? was a bit rubbish” is like standing in the foyer mouthing off, if you people have an opinion to give they have the opportunity to direct message the artist/performer and tell them. This is something that should be encouraged and I am fairly confident that the criticism from such direct conversation will be both more meaningful and less rude as the writer understands they are moving into a situation that mirrors a more personal conversation in reality.
i played the Georgian Theatre, Richmond a few months back. after the show I went to the bar and just as I got there the tech person said, “not my cup of tea at all”. she turned around and looked horrified to see me, but I was happy to say, “oh, I’m pretty niche. certainly not everyone’s cup of tea”
Going back to my sixth form communications studies lessons (an opening that rightly fills most sane people with dread) I recall various models of communication, of the simple process of how communication takes place. Things that get in the way of those basic models are barriers, such as crackly phone lines, not being able to see someone you’re talking to. For me Twitter’s main barrier to communication is its character limit. It can be so hard to convey complexity in so few characters, and when you do, the reader has to work harder to understand it. It’s very easy for writer or reader to fail.
So Twitter communication can often be like a large stack of Jenga blocks balanced on the edge of a credit card, either an uncomfortable metaphor or, more likely, a finely balanced stability fraught and ready to topple over in an instance. All that before you even start to bring in the factor of “people liking to be bastards”.
I think there’s two things going in here:
The first is that normal standards of politeness *are* different on twitter than they are offline. I don’t mean that they don’t exist, just that they are different. For example, real life etiquette: you are standing in a bar with a group of people, and ask if any of them have a specific bit of information you need. Ten people in front of you give you, to your face, the helpful, concrete answers you were looking for, and you acknowledge and thank the four who are either famous, or already friends of yours. You completely ignore the other six who answered, but, hours later, when they’ve all gone home, you throw out a “thanks, all” to the empty air. In real life this would be astonishingly rude, but on twitter, I think it’s pretty understandable and OK – if I tweet info at people who have asked for it, I assume I’ll be one tweet in a hundred, and don’t expect a personal acknowledgement. Plenty of other people (including apparently you, since I’ve seen you do it) also think it’s OK. Other people might not. Now, I happen to agree with you that in the case you were citing, including an @ when you are being a bit horrid about someone isn’t really on, but it’s not really surprising that other people have come to a conclusion that it’s different on twitter, when they wouldn’t do that in offline life.
The other thing happening here, i think, is that you forget that you *are* a somebody, despite your statements to the contrary. You’ve got more than sixty-seven thousand followers on twitter. If you mention someone in a tweet, or tweet them directly, even if you don’t already know that person, chances are that they will respond to you as a Famous Person. Stuff you tweet yourself is noticed and responded to and retweeted. Most of us aren’t like that. Most of us are used to, well, being ignored, except by people we are already friends with, and if we do ever tweet a celebrity (vile word, i know, I’m sorry, but it’s useful shorthand) then on the whole we don’t expect the person to even see it, never mind respond, and this may affect how some people use the @. To you, using an @username may be like talking about someone while you are standing with them, but many people may subconsciously see it more like talking about someone on stage while sitting far back in the audience. The person tweeted about in this specific case may not be a superstar or have a massive follower level, but the the person tweeting the criticism had just experienced them as a celeb, kind of, so I can see the same kind of dynamic coming into play here.
None of this, of course, excuses people being dicks on the internet. People (including me) should be kinder and more thoughtful when dealing with other people online. But sometimes things taken as dickishness or flames, I really think aren’t intended as such, just the clumsy and misfiring of evolving online etiquette, and I think it’s important to remember that, too.
PS – I don’t drive, either, and I hate that having a driving licence is seen as some kind of Badge of Adulthood. Bah!
Good comparison with driving, not sure about de-humanising but both tweeting and driving suspend ‘reality’ granting a new set of powers, protocols and conventions. In both we are susceptible to the actions of others whilst empowered. Some people deserve twit-buse in my opinion if Leon Knight and Tommy Robinson are entitled to their freedom of speech then I am entitled to mine. If someone is driving dangerously or talking bs then they should be told, it’s a social need and healthy. If everyone had outed Hitler as tetchy and he had had to leave Twitter then things could have been different.
Both driving and tweeting expose us to others’ actions that we may not otherwise experience and this prompts reactions we may not otherwise enact or voice. Inserting rationality between emotion and action is a life skill we all need to master, and this is tested most when we have this sense of entitlement imo.
I tweet anonymously, I dont want my details to be available to just anyone. I joined Twitter in part because one particularly moronic ‘journalist’ drove me to having to vent my frustration. We live in a world where some ‘journos’ and media organisations believe trolling is a way to get ‘clicks’, traffic comments etc It’s done on an industrial scale, it pollutes our culture and if the most they suffer is an easily avoided tweet then that’s a small price.
As long as everyone has access to a keyboard, hopefully forever, there will be opinions covering the spectrum of human intellect, emotions and limitations. Robin touches on his acquired Twitter etiquette yet also his perceived Twitter shortcomings. He is only human, Twitter is merely an extension of human speech and thought. Our failings and successes will always be found on Twitter which I think is great.
I think tweets are mere thought-farts and Twitter a massive ideas gloryhole, with all it’s joy and sorrow.
This is something that has been worrying me for a time – I’m housebound (often bedridden) so the internet is often my only social outlet, yet increasingly I’ve found myself using it for media and information but refraining from joining in the discussion. Why? Because the anonymity the internet can offer, if you choose to remain so, allows the bullies to do what they do best and be cowards. What I mean is they say things from the “safety” of anonymity that they would be too cowardly or ashamed to say to someone’s face, and that, to me, is just plain wrong. There’s a vast difference between offering constructive criticism and openly flaming people, but more and more it seems the denizens of certain corners of the internet don’t know, or don’t want to acknowledge, the difference. Thank you for putting my fears in such a clear way!
I agree that anonymity allows the worst to thrive. despite my view though, overall I think the positive possibilities of increased communication outweigh the negative. I reckon take a risk and get involved every now and again
I agree with what you have said in this article! I often come across people saying nasty things about others on social networking sites like Twitter without any regard for how the person they have just mentioned might feel about it. And they seem to think that it is okay if that person is a celebrity, but it’s not. Everyone has feelings, and some people don’t seem to realise that. What I try to do is imagine how I would feel if I were in the other person’s shoes, and then only would I say what is on my mind. If I would feel bad being the recipient of whatever it is that I’ve said, then I just don’t say it! Of course, I don’t always succeed, but I try to do so regardless. Thank you for this well-written article. People really need to be more aware about the etiquette that should be practised online and also in real life.
I agree completely with the majority of this, but wanted to comment a little on the indirect criticism section*.
I hink there are three circumstances where an indirect review or comment is reasonable, the first has provided above is in that of praise:I thought @xxx show was brilliant”. But if you are looking for clarification on a point or idea, it might be worth opening it up to fans and the author “what did @xxx mean by saying ???” Especially as often you don’t get replies when mentioning ‘public figures’.
Sometimes though, I do feel that someone has to be called out publically when they do something outrageous or out of order. When an MP was quite unnecessarily rude about the Olympic opening ceremod “what a Dick @xxx is” or words to that effect. bviously if this ever appropriate to you may depend on whether you see Twitter as your own mini blog or a giant conversation.
*just realised that this may be part of the issue. The best discourse always comes from disagreement. Particularly in Twitter what’s the point in saying ‘I agree’ when we have a retweet function? Maybe that’s what they mean by looking for a reaction?
Robin, are you referring to the phenomenon of putting words, quotes or a full stop before the @ so everyone can see your response? I do find that extremely poor form in all honestly. I don’t follow people on twitter to see their online spats.
If people must do that, use Charlie Brooker’s “@[redacted]” approach. Anything else is baiting and using your influence and (presumably) high follower count to incite a mob.
Can understand being driven to it though.
“salomeanulisch: In the spirit of genuine curiosity, why is positive feedback okay but negative feedback is to be blocked and ignored? (To be clear, I am not defending any of these vituperative commenters, I am sincere in my inquisitiveness.)”
I don’t think it is as simple as that – and I don’t think that’s what Robin has described. It is about polite/impolite not positive/negative.
Is a comment addressing a person – ie, intending to engage – or is it just about that person. If someone tweets. “I saw @performerX today and was quite disappointed” that reads quite differently to, “@performerX saw your show tonight and was quite disappointed with… (etc etc)”. One is the equivalent of approaching them at the bar after the show to have a conversation, the other is like standing in the bar talking to your friends about it, but doing so self-consciously loudly so that you know the person will hear it. It’s not an invitation to join in the discourse. And even if it is, by addressing the comment to all of your followers first – it is like starting a conversation by going to the town centre, ringing a bell and yelling “Hear ye, hear ye…”
I don’t think anyone expects to be immune from criticism. But how that’s expressed is important.
People often see blocking as a sign that someone’s lost their temper. But the thing with twitter (and all social networks) is that they’re very malleable things. We each shape it to our own tastes. Some people go on about how it’s full of left wing liberal politics. But they think that because they’ve followed a bunch of people who broadly share those views. I’m sure there’s another part of twitter that is rife with right wing politics too.
Online/offline we are all entitled to choose the company we keep. If someone sits next to me on the bus with offensively loud headphones on leaking tinny music into the air – and there’s another seat available elsewhere, I’ll go and sit there.
That’s how I feel about blocking someone. I just think, “oh… you want to use twitter in a way that’s different to me. I’ll go and sit over here where we don’t have to trouble one another.” That’s all it is.
(This reads as if I block people all the time. I don’t. Most of the time I block people because I see them being rude to others.)
I think one of the problems, and I’m sorry if this comes across as ageist, is that a lot of the people using social networks are quite young. Whilst I don’t mean to be insulting to young people, the difference between what I know now as a 31 year old and what I knew 10 years ago is huge, plus I think my capacity for compassion has probably increased a lot in that time. I remember being 21 and having this sense of being pissed off with the world in general and also being very unforgiving towards anything that seemed to go against my personal beliefs even in a very small or insignificant way – I probably would have been one of these kids shouting “but I think you DID mean it that way” long after the matter has been cleared up. I’m eternally grateful that Twitter didn’t exist then because I probably would have acted like an idiot on it.
I haven’t had a lot of abuse directed at me personally on the internet, but I remember leaving a comment on a music blog a while back and receiving a lot of “cunt” and “slut” comments by people who clearly thought they were being funny. It was a little upsetting at first but then I realised the oldest of these commenters was probably about 19 years old. One of the problems you can’t really get beyond is the fact that different generations will have different concepts of what is appropriate and I suppose those who’ve grown up with Facebook, etc will take it for granted that they can they have a right to make their opinion known and if they can include the target of that opinion with an @ response, so much the better for them. I think a lot of them will probably grow out of it, but short term I don’t see what can be done beyond blocking each idiot individually. No doubt some of this type of thing will disappear when people realise that employers and family members can see what they’re saying, but then of course that has the unappealing side effect of people feeling the need to censor themselves when they shouldn’t.
Robin, are you referring the phenomena of putting text, quotes or a full stop before the @ symbol so all followers can see the witty reply? I find that to be the height or rudeness and only a horrible egomaniac could ever think of doing such a thing. It can only be an abuse of the presumably bigger influence due to the presumably bigger follower count. It incites the mob of the extreme part of a popular twitter user’s follower base.
I sympathise with any celebrity having to endure trolls but block, ignore or reply one to one. If you must let everyone see what you’ve done, follow Charlie Brooker’s “@[redacted]” approach. Remember, we followed you because we like you – not so we can follow your arguments.
Unless you’re Piers Morgan.
if you have no interest in the person seeing your criticism then why say “didn’t like @robinince’s rubbish thing” when you could just say “didn’t like Robin Ince’s show last night”, the action of putting @robinince puts it with all other communication I would receive via twitter so would clearly have the intention being read. Most people I know attempt to communicate with their followers or people who send comments so the only way of avoiding it would be to decide twitter would be a one way thing. I’d give my opinions, plugs etc but never bother looking at anyone’s comments to me and that would seem arrogant to me and not in the nature of what twiiter can be.
Oh I don’t disagree with that – if you want to say “I didn’t like Robin Ince’s show” you should say it like that. If you want to say “@robinince I didn’t like your show” even THAT is perhaps alright (if not very constructive), it’s just when people say “.@robinince I didn’t like your show” (note the full stop) or “hey @Robinince your show was bad” there’s the subtle difference. It’s inviting people to chime in, because they will both see that reply and also you will get any reply they send.
What I meant was when people with many followers, celebrities in general, respond to the criticism in that way so everybody can see. It should be a two way thing but I don’t want to see someone I follow deal with their hecklers in my timeline by not directly replying. It smacks of poor form and even my most beloved twitterers do it.
for some reason a reply to someone else has ended up under your comment, hence confusion. sorry
Hmm. I’m not completely sold. Oh, I’m sold on the idea of “don’t be a dick” – Wheaton’s Law works across all formats. What I’m not sold on is the idea of “Eh, saw @??? lecture & wasn’t terribly impressed” being a Thing to Avoid. I am, after all, addressing my comments in to the Ether That Which Follow Me (poor things); I don’t assume that @??? is even going to notice my Tweet.
And therein lies the rub: if I followed what you’re saying and instead did something like “.@???, thought you made some mistakes in last night’s lecture; can you explain XYZ?” then I am assuming that @??? is going to get back to me. Now, I’ve had a somewhat delightful amount of response on Twitter, but I’m not so arrogant as to assume people are going to get back to me – or agree that they need to actually answer my concerns regarding mistakes.
“Eh, saw @??? lecture & wasn’t terribly impressed; too focused on ev-bio” gives the folks who follow me context for who was lecturing, my general impression, and a basic reason for it. Directly addressing @??? skips that and creates a different kind of dialog, which is attempting to be with @??? rather than “anyone who feels like responding.”
if you have no interest in the person seeing your criticism then why say “didn’t like @robinince’s rubbish thing” when you could just say “didn’t like Robin Ince’s show last night”, the action of putting @robinince puts it with all other communication I would receive via twitter so would clearly have the intention being read. Most people I know attempt to communicate with their followers or people who send comments so the only way of avoiding it would be to decide twitter would be a one way thing. I’d give my opinions, plugs etc but never bother looking at anyone’s comments to me and that would seem arrogant to me and not in the nature of what twitter can be.
I agree with Dave G’s comment above^.
Personally, I unfollow anyone (if I`m in a mood, of course) who Tweets something ABOUT someone they don’t know, but also @`s them e.g. “@ProfFrancesca is talking even less sense than @RobinInce #SML”
I am very much anti – (Insert derogatory remark about people who insults others here) having been horrifically bullied at school and I think I’m almost on the side of ‘Quit whining and deal with it’ because as far as I’m aware there will always be bullies/trolls/gobshites no matter where you go. Even at university, having migrated to the Midlands, I found someone ready to lecture me on how much of a cunt I was. So really if someone starts to get on your wick online then, no matter how impolite or passive aggressive, just block them and move on or maybe not even block them, just install a plugin which censors potential trolls because the best thing about the internet is the nerds/geeks/magnificent people who are usually targeted by real world trolls have the power and conviction to pick off the cyber-trolls.
Then again I am generally a youtube commenter and when a guy with a webcam rips into another guy with a webcam, the whole issue of anonymity is gone away with.
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My blog recently went viral (for all the wrong reasons) and I found myself the subject of extensive and intensely personal abuse. I think you’re completely right about being empathetic and that it runs both ways.
It’s easy to view ourselves as a martyr; so very very tempting. But we have to remember that those abusing us are people too, just really upset or somewhat lacking in empathy themselves. I got so many hat tips about my class for responding to the comments with politeness, perhaps us Brits can handle the net well after all?
I wrote about my experiences and would be honoured if you fancied a look: http://articulateandintricate.com/2013/07/11/righteous-indignation-pants/