“Forever” is, of course, a relative term these days. Once
upon a time it meant, well, forever, but having been devalued about twenty
years ago by “Yours to own forever on video” (i.e. about five years) it has since come to mean “about five hours” which
seems to be the longest any of us can go without checking our messages or
catching up with whatever “vital” social networking requirements seem to be
calling out to us.
Nevertheless the thing that bothers me is that it’s now so
easy for someone to just make an accusation about somebody and it can be
bouncing all around the world and believed to be the truth before anyone’s had
the chance to know what’s actually being said about them, so that, by the time
they’ve got the chance to publish an explanation, they already look like a
guilty person trying to wheedle their way out from underneath whatever it was
they were being accused of.
A “celebrity” name (or otherwise) might “slip out” due to a nasty bit of opportunism
from a passing neighbour, or a visitor who happens to be in the right wrong
place at the right wrong time, and a reputation and a career can be utterly
destroyed if even the merest hint of a taint of wrongdoing can now be sniffed
on the morning air.
Now do not misunderstand me. If wrongdoing has been done
then it is absolutely right that the perpetrator should face the consequences
of their actions, but the problem is that we’re brewing up a culture where
guilt is assumed before anyone has had an opportunity to defend themselves, and
if something that has been said turns out to have been untrue, then we ought to
give it just the same amount of weight and support, even though people still
prefer to believe and remember the juicy gossip over the cold, hard (and
possibly quite dull) truth…
Lord Leveson stated quite emphatically that social media are
too difficult to police but that should not give anyone the right to burble out
such hatred about something unsubstantiated just because they can. “Freedom of
Speech” is one thing, but the freedom to spread malicious gossip had always
been something that society used to frown upon, even in medieval times, and yet
we now like to think of ourselves as being more civilised than that…
Such things are no different from the actions of the mob,
and we really ought to resist descending to the level of the mob if we still
want to consider ourselves to be a civilised society.
When that first name slipped out I read such a barrage of
hatred from the “always thought there was something dodgy” “iReckon” brigade,
and from those who were genuinely upset to hear a much loved name being
mentioned in such a context, but very few were actually questioning whether
this was the right name at all, and whether he had actually done anything.
As he was released without charge a few hours later, the
storm died down, only to resurface when an actual well known broadcaster was
actually arrested for “historically committed” crimes a couple of days later.
The venom and the online hatred was out in force again at
that time. Almost as if anyone who’d ever taken a dislike to the man – and
let’s face it, none of us can be liked by everyone and this is magnified for
those living in the “public eye” – suddenly felt the need to spout forth their
spite and bile about someone who most of them had never even met but that they
thought they knew because their face and voice had been in their living rooms
so often over the years.
And ultimately, that’s the problem. We may very well need to
defend the right to free speech, but should we simultaneously condone the
raging ravings of the thoughtless, hostile and downright offensive? There are
those who will always maintain that it is all “self-regulating” in a way, in so
far as an opposing argument can be voiced, although it is often obliterated in
the face of the oncoming juggernaut and the lone voice of reason can find
themselves being turned upon.
The other problem is that this is what gets remembered long
after all of the furore and the anger has died down. Even if the person is
proven to be completely innocent and gets released without a stain upon their
character, they’ll always be the person about whom people say things like “Oh,
wasn’t he the one who…?” in a year’s time, because all that they will remember
is that raging, damning headline, and another career is all but over simply because
of the merest hint of a scandal meaning that no-one will touch them with a
barge-pole.
The other, more sinister, worry is about the ignorant who
might read all that hate and believe it and go off and do what they believe to
be in the “public good” and commit an act so barbaric upon the person that they
criminalise themselves and cause a much larger tragedy to unfold than the
“innocent” and “faceless” voices on the internet could ever have thought
possible when they first spewed out their message in 140 characters or less,
and about which they would no doubt be pronouncing upon later.
We should all be careful about what we say, no matter how “outraged”
we might feel at a particular moment, because all of us can very easily find
ourselves on the other side of the coin and being chased by the baying mob, and
all of us run the risk of having our own words coming back to haunt us and bite
us when we least expect it.
Totally agree with you Martin. Anonymity seems to be a double edged sword. I am shocked by the way people talk to each other on message boards. We need moderating influences such as yourself so please don't pack your bags.
ReplyDeleteI find the general nastiness and self-righteousness online very hard to take sometimes. I agree, don't go anywhere, we need you to keep things in balance. Happy New Year by the way, if it's not too late for all that...
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