Say that something gets written. Something you don’t agree with. In fact, it’s something that your moral standards find so terribly offensive that you’re moved to write something grumpy and grumble to your peers.
And say, that in your grumbling, more offensive things are said. The torches get lit and the pitchforks come out. The mob moves in, only to find itself met by another, equally angry mob.
People demand that everyone mark everyone else as spam on twitter so that the offensive content cannot continue. It doesn’t matter what side of the argument you’re on, the other side is WRONG and you must shut down the discussion, in case someone hears it.
Offensive remarks are made on all sides and suddenly, there’s a flame war happening, with torches and BURN THE WITCH and shouting. Everyone is a bit hot under the collar.
While I can see that Mob A has some valid points, Mob B has some valid points too.
It all just feels like mud slinging, until someone shouts “LET’S TELL ON THEM! SHUT DOWN THE OFFENSIVENESS! STOP IT SPREADING!!”
Because I have been here before. I have seen this happen before and no doubt I will see this happen again. Chickenliver vs Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper anyone?
Cries of “BREACH OF TOS” “HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING” “I WOULD NEVER DO THAT!!!!!” get thrown around and people get angry. Blogs get reported (here there and everywhere, because everyone has a pitchfork by this point) and everyone feels vindicated.
BECAUSE I’M RIGHT.
Only, what if you’re not right? What if the other side is right? What if neither of you is right? What if this is not a black and white issue, but the whole thing is various shades of grey?
Do you have the right to police the Internet, just because you’re standing on the (slippery) moral high ground and think that you’re right?
Do you have the right to incite a mob to flag and mark as spam, just because something doesn’t fit with your sense of moral standards?
The Internet is a huge place and there is something to offend everybody. There is also a red X in the corner of your screen that you can click to make the offensiveness go away.
You can choose to stay silent, or speak out, as you choose. But whatever you do, you have to own that choice and wear the consequences. You have to own your words and stand by them.
There is always someone who is going to disagree with you and there is a whole other conversation that needs to be had about transparency and business practices, but right now, I’m watching the mobs try to police each other and wondering why no one has realised that this whole thing isn’t really all that important.
YES!!
I’ve had to abandon a lot of sites I used to enjoy (and learn from) because of trolls and flame wars and the compulsion to HAVE THE LAST WORD AT ANY COST.
It’s a terrible shame that adults can’t be more… well, adult.
That is it. I stopped reading some blogs because the drama mongering just got too much.
Agree with every word you’ve said.
*applauds*
*clapping*
the sanest thing said in the last few days. thank you.
I completely agree with you. COMPLETELY. I’m actually, perfectly OK with online melt downs all the way up to …cutting off internet access for one side or the other. Eff THAT. I’ll judge the offensive myself thank you very much and IF I don’t like it *I* can click away. If people are beefing with me ? NO NEED to alert anyone.. I can handle it, am a GROWN UP.
I kinda worry about you kids today with the whole..I’d rather be nice than right thing … Mental wrestling is good for ya…
Yes, shutting down the conversation because you don’t like what’s being said? Uuuugh.
Such wise words Veronica. Thank you.
I’ve had a think about things. I don’t agree with both sides. It is tit for yay and self righteousness for most of it. And it is easy to get caught up in the arguments online. Too easy. But the Internet is forever.
You are right – the Internet is a big place and there is something for everyone. Thank you.
Sometimes I think the Foale women are the wisest in the world.:)
Ever since the whole thing erupted I’ve heard alot of push back against the original concern. Which is good. People have opinions. If they are like me they have opinions about EVERYTHING. What does that push back sound like? Get over it. It’s no big deal. You are over-reacting. Just don’t read it then. All these complaints are bullshit. Why can’t you people just make nice. And that sounds like a whole lot of silencing to me. And I’m not cool with that.
I completely agree that to try and police the internet is stupid and counter-productive. But my concern is that the ongoing characterisation of the initial concern as worthless, mob mentality, waste of time, pointless shitstorm is just more of the sound of silence.
And my concern remains the same. Nuffnang and I have a core value disconnect. And people can tell me to get over it as much as they like but I won’t.
I agree with you here too – as much as this post may seem like I don’t. I think what I’ve written is one facet of things and your concerns are another.
I took down my NN ads earlier this month because I didn’t like where things were headed, the competitive that they were encouraging and the generalised favouritism. But also, I wanted this post to not be “muddy” with more than one issue as the point. This point is that we shouldn’t be aiming to silence the debate/argument by shutting down blogs or twitter accounts, or marking them as spam.
Also, thinking about it, the original post about this was muddy. The main point (Is it all about the money and the traffic for you, Nuffnang?) got lost in the rabblerabblerabble and lit torches. And that point is the important one.
All I can say is nothing is ever as black and white as you may perceive. You’re only hearing, (reading) what “they” want you to hear/read, there may well be other sides to the issues being fought over, life is often a hexagon. Step back and think things over before putting your voice in, you may find you really don’t need to or shouldn’t. A lot of people are out there with nothing more on their agenda than inciting riots.
I didn’t shut it down because I didn’t like what was being said. I shut it down because so many of my friends blogs were apparently being set upon, simply by association. Do you imagine I didn’t know how turning off comments woudl be perceived? That I would be ridiculed for it? I would have kept going but some of my friends were talking about stopping blogging all together. So it’s my pride or my friendships.
I didn’t say I was ALL right and she was ALL wrong. I said that *I* had an issue with that being presented as the BEST regional blog. Better than you or Eden or any number of blogs with good content. I said it was surprising to ME.
I didn’t say she should be shut down, told to remove content or lose her awards. At any point. I didn’t THINK those things let alone say them. I don’t believe that people should be stopped from expressing themselves. But as much as she can express herself her awy to her HUGE audience, I thought I was expressing myself my way to my TINY one.
I tweet every (almost) blog post I write. I (before this) got less than 5% of my traffic from twitter. NOONE (almost again) retweets them. So it did not occur to me that this would be any different. That I’d go from getting 2-400 hits a day to getting 50 000 in the last 4.
I didn’t delete the horrible things said to me. I let them through because I believe that everyone has right of reply. But I think you’ll find it was OTHERS who got taken away with comments of child sex abuse, peodophilia, nuffnang removing her, Terms of Service etc.
I just don’t think she is the BEST blog. She’s clearly influential. Not arguing there. I just don’t happen to think Biggest Numbers = Best writing.
I realise that a lot of my followers are annoyed with me at the moment. A lot of people think I did it for attention. I didn’t. Why would I expect this one particular post to get caught up in a tidal wave of tweets and comments, when some really GOOD things I”ve written still only get a couple of dozen comments at most.
I may have started it. But I chose to end it because people were getting carried away and it was turning into a race war. I can take the fight, if I have to. I just don’t think it’s a healthy one to have. NOone was arguing the original point anymore. It was just damaging by that point.
I’m sorry. I don’t know how many more people I”m going to have to say that to. I didn’t want Nuffnang involved. I was ruminating. Just like you do and your Mum does and other bloggers do.
Okay, firstly, hang in there.
I do not blame you for closing comments. I would have done so long before you did, just to make the vitriol and trolls stop.
A lot of what I’ve taken objection to is the behaviours by those you can’t control. It’s not you, it’s everyone else. Really. That’s why this post is purposefully vague, because I didn’t want you to think that it was all about you. It wasn’t and isn’t. It’s about the mob mentality that came out of it – something you had no control over.
I think your concerns were valid, especially the concerns surrounding Nuffnang and how they work. More transparency is needed there and from the reaction to your post, I’d say that this is something that has been brewing for a while and you were the catalyst.
Don’t feel like you need to take responsibility for the whole mess. You wrote the post and people had the reaction that they had. You can’t force how they react.
xx
I have an issue with your latest blog post – you state in the comment section
‘I was clear there would be no comments on the situation with the other blogger. Couldn’t have been clearer. Said I would delete comments that appeared elsewhere on the blog (they all come to my inbox, moron, and I delete them immediately. Yours is allowed to stay so your other friends will have it all spelled out for them. Again”. ‘
You have obviously deleted other comments that have brought up the previous posts, it is very obvious that they are NEGATIVE comments because others have brought up the previous posts but are in SUPPORT of you and yet you have left them in your comments to be read.
If you’re going to delete ALL comments about the previous posts, you need to apply that across the board. It just looks like you don’t want the negative ones showing but are quite happy to have people on your side say their piece and it be read.
Be clear, be consistent, otherwise it makes it very easy for people to pull you and what you say apart.
I’m not sure my blog is the place for this, considering I posted about the rabblerabblerabble already. But you know, whatever.
Look, there is a lot of anger and issues on both sides of the fence here. Probably time for everyone to step away from the computer and the anon commenters to leave Mel alone and the aus bloggers to step away from making comments about Xiaxue.
I did, actually. I deleted several positive comments that were specifically about Xiaxue’s blog. I kept ones that weren’t specifically about that post. And ones that were NEGATIVE that didn’t mention specifically that post. Including ones telling me to kill myself, that I’m a fat, ugly troll who is jealous of other people. That I’m a terrible writer, wife, mother and human being. They are now scattered ALL through my blog, on other pages and posts as well.
I have ONLY deleted anything specifically about THAT post. I’ve let everything else stand.
Interesting.
I think competitiveness is killing blogging. People are more concerned about stats and traffic then connections and stories. Sigh.
*than even
I actually disagree to some extent. I think it is our place to police the internet to a point – crawlers do not catch all vile content and it’s up to us to report things that break the rules be they TOS or laws, or encourage others to break them. However, once that reporting is done my job is over – it is not up to me to follow it through, that is the job of the companies in question.
Holy. Shit.
I’ve been in transit and haven’t caught up with the latest, I can only imagine.
I felt some responsibility for pouring some fuel on the fire after I had a twitter tirade regarding this, even though I tried to keep it general. Woke up the next morning feeling not great about it. I was just so angry about the dumbing down and nature of “celebrity” and vacuous offensive role-models getting rewarded in society by things like money, attention, and .. blog awards.
Then it all just grew a life of its own. Nobody could ever win .. let’s move on and all hope to react better next time. Because there will be a next time.
Awesome post Veronica.
I don’t know if I’ve just been plain lucky but I’d never seen anything like this before. There are a few things going on here. While I agree differences of opinion are very important to air out, some people have zero clue about the definition of debate vs shitslinging. I am happy to read views opposing mine, heck I applaud anyone whose articulation even brings me around to a broader view I may have initially missed. But if someone starts an attack about sensitive issues from someone else’s past, starts a bogus Twitter account for the sheer sake of continuing the vitriol or sprays a blogger in a shower of four-letter words, damn right they should be reported.
This whole saga was just so disappointing for me.
I witnessed bloggers I respected turn into nothing more than cyber bullies and hypocrites. Hell, I even had people argue with me because I dared to agree that XX IS influential and sadly was on the receiving end of a disgusting DM that was personally attacking me and my role as a foster parent the next day.
My main issue was, If you have a problem with Nuffnang, contact them directly, don’t bring another person into it and attack them.
What everyone should know and live by is
“Just because it is your opinion, does not make it so”
This was a great post V
xx
Wow, just wow.
Well said!
Powerful post Veronica. You are a wise, wise woman.
Hello! Thankfully I don’t know what the post is *really* about and I won’t dig to find out because it’s not my fight. Generally, though, I believe in a free internet but if some guy is posting kiddie porn pics or abusing people physically and posting pics, or cyberbullying and that sort of thing… that needs to be stopped. And by “cyberbullying” I don’t mean “I hate you and think you are stupid,” I mean real and harassing comments that would make a resonable person afraid/feel threatened.
Though also on my own blog I remove comments I don’t feel like putting up with. Other people can have free speech on their own blogs. I don’t want to have someone leave comments like I’m f-d up and my kids are too, that sort of thing. Nope. *delete button* and I are friends when I get those types in. 🙂
PS hope everyone in this particular problem are at peace soon and your Christmas is excellent.
Something I’ve notice lately online is that people have lost their filter. You know, that thing we try to teach our children about the things you can and cannot (or should I say should or should not) say in public. It’s all gone on the net, people are using these social sites as a way to spread their opinions and then argue them. It’s like a high school debate class with kindergarteners. Because the net is so fast people don’t have to think before they spew their word vomit and IMO twitter (who I think is the worst offender) along with all the other sites are actually promotting it. What we have is a lot of very strongly opinioned bored people online who want to fight with anyone who will fight back.Like you said, people are happy to give their opinions but refuse to see the other side of things, I’m actually starting to dread what the future holds for our children, we are obviously teaching them that only their opinions matter and if you don’t like it you can go tattle and the other side will be “shut down”. IRD is a very good synonym for I Respectfully Disagree, as long as you back up your opinion with facts and proof and ignore those who won’t. Sometimes its best to agree to disagree!
Ahhh, yet more BS cluttering up the interwebs.
Ignore it lest the stench filter through to your blog.
I feel similar to Zoey on this one. My issue is with Nuffnang’s ethics, really. I did go back to those posts a few more times to add comments, because I felt so bad for Melissa that I just didn’t want her to feel alone during all the horrible attacks.
I dunno. There was that video of the young kid crying over being bullied, and tons of nasty hateful comments. I had a great time flagging a bunch of those for spam.
It’ the interwebz and we’re free to speak, but encouraging a suicidal boy to end his life? I’m totally policing that.
Wow, I have no idea what this is really about and I don’t write a blog. I enjoy reading blogs but am getting a little fed up with the “I’m sponsored by…..” and the freebies given for review. I read blogs to read about about other people’s lives and the way they cope with their life and sometimes, just sometimes, smugly feel better about myself. Other times I marvel at their resilience at what life throws at them. Blogging has become too much of a business and less about people and their lives!
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