Welcome to the internet, where no one dare say what they think
Here’s a really important piece to come out of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It’s the author Patrick Ness talking about the effect Twitter and web comments have on our ability to speak our minds.
Social media and online comments ‘causing writers to self-censor’ | Books | guardian.co.uk.
Let me quote…
Instead of bringing us all together in an omnipresent, multi-faceted discussion, the internet instead has made sectarianism an almost default position… hough no one really wants to say so out loud, most of us seem to accept these days that the comments on Guardian articles … while occasionally containing interesting replies, are far more often the domain of outraged point-missers, incandescently furious pedants, and trolls who don’t bother reading past the sub-headline
Dead right. I posted comments on the Guardian a couple of times and gave up because all I got back was a stream of personal abuse. Given this is the UK’s ‘liberal’ paper it’s amazing how vituperative the ‘debate’ is here.
But actually I self-censor on this blog too because I can’t be bothered with the hassle and occasional upset you get from expressing a simple opinion. I rarely write about Apple any more because even the most anodyne of pieces produce a stack of off-topic comments from fanboys who clearly have nothing better to do than berate anyone who isn’t part of the cult.
I’m also not minded to write a couple of articles about self-publishing I’d been considering because I know that whatever you write in that area you will get stacks of people coming on and saying ‘What have you got against self-publishers’ (nothing at all) and then carefully planting the url for their latest book in the ‘comment’.
The internet is consolidating opinion into set streams. Genres if you like, just as it’s doing with ebooks. More and more the way these opinion streams move resembles the mindless, unquestioning protocols of competing cults than the questions raised by curious individuals.
That’s a generalisation, of course. But Patrick Ness has a great point. If we’re going to get our heads cut off every time we express an opinion we will, sooner rather than later, think… why bother? What’s the point?
3 Responses to “Welcome to the internet, where no one dare say what they think”
I love that point about ‘outraged point-missers and incandescently furious pedants…’! Personally and as a business, I am always extremely carefull about what I post on the ‘net and it is always anodyne. This is sad, since I find I am just using the ‘net as a sales channel for my business and not as something more. Maybe I am using it in the wrong way?
As early as 1995, “flame wars” became one of the first phrases to find it’s way into the lexicon of net users. Early influences, as they were known, hoping to hedge the thing back toward civil conversation, pleaded for change through articles on what they called Netiquette. About that time, IRC – International Relay Chat, came along and rapidly became little more than a worldwide cuss fight. “Why bother?” became the question almost from the start.
E-Minds, the second major online community developed behind The Well, imploded primarily because of a total loss of civility. Those of us who posted there were forced to answer the “Why bother?” question. The possibility of a civil conversation on a worldwide basis is still attractive. The problems we could solve. But this looks like the era when wasteful anger has the upper hand.
“Why bother?” is a constant.
Fairly sad and true. Self censoring is a must if you want to keep your peace. I wonder when I will shut down commenting altogether in my blogs.
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