Guest post from Lianne Marie Mease (@LianneMarieB) on the topical issue of social media manners…
Spending every waking hour with one eye on Twitter is one of the benefits of being employed as a social media expert. Of course I am beginning to look somewhat like Mad Eyed Moody… but who doesn’t like Brendan Gleeson?
Twitter is a magnificent platform. It allows us to observe the thoughts and conversations of people we’re interested in, share our opinions, advice and lend support to each other’s causes.
The darker side of Twitter, however, is that once you put your thoughts out there and people begin to get behind them, you leave yourself vulnerable. The internet offers a veil of anonymity and the restriction to 140 characters leads to content being valued over courtesy.
Your comments can and will be retweeted globally and if you are misunderstood or misinformed then woe betide you. Once it’s out there, it ‘aint coming back.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the event of a scandal please blog about it in order to make your position clear and tweet a link. 140 characters do not an apology make, substantiate a claim or lay a rumour to rest.
And when you see an offensive tweet, why not take a second to check if there’s a context before you retweet it? Consider what Emily Post said: Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.
Recently in Leeds we’ve had; animosity over the (mis)use of the word feminist; a poster advertising hotdogs; and homophobic bar owners during Leeds Pride. In the wider world you can’t swing a whippet without seeing t’internet trolls abusing everyone from Gary Barlow and Kirstie Allsopp to Olympic Athletes. The world can be an ugly place.
Back to God’s own county… the homophobic comment was made privately to a select list of people on Facebook – yet a screenshot was tweeted publicly. The homophobe in question isn’t on Twitter to defend himself and is swiftly losing friends on Facebook and facing an army of disgusted ex-customers.
The poster may have been offensive to female students, but it was also designed by a female student, is two years old and was a successful advertising campaign. From the perspective of the business owners, where is the incentive to immediately and contritely remove the poster when the complaint had no effect on trade (the opposite in fact), except for people in Australia who have never been to Leeds, much less eaten the hotdogs in question suffering mob mentality and “boycotting” the shop?
If you approach someone with hostility, it’s human nature to fight back. If you approach someone rationally and reason with them, then they will respond in kind. This is the way we behave in person, why do we not have good manners online?
Where is the line drawn? When does it move from engaging to bullying? Why don’t we stop once a complaint has been acknowledged? What are we trying to achieve anyway?
Lianne Marie Mease is a marketing communications and social media expert. Yorkshire born and bred, she lives in Leeds and works for QA Learning. She is author of the recipe blog Everything Goes With Toast, a champion of Lavender jam and unnaturally obsessed with David Bowie.
RE: “From the perspective of the business owners, where is the incentive to immediately and contritely remove the poster when the complaint had no effect on trade (the opposite in fact), except for people in Australia who have never been to Leeds, much less eaten the hotdogs in question suffering mob mentality and “boycotting” the shop?”
In running a local business, surely successful trade isn’t your *only* motivation behind all your decisions? Offending customers and perpetrating everyday sexism might be something to avoid, because it’s the right thing to do. Furthermore, a lot of the uproar over HotDogGate was not just about the poster itself, but about the numerous hostile and downright rude response tweets from the business owner. i live right here in leeds and was a very frequent patron of the business. while i’m not just jumping on the boycott bandwagon, i must say the incident makes me a lot less excited about eating there than i used to be.
And as for the homophobic comment, I don’t think anything you put on Facebook can be described as “private,” even if it’s only for your Facebook friends to see. Even if it were, a lot of people wouldn’t want to support a business that’s owned by someone who’s homophobic, publicly or privately. And he’s not on Twitter to defend himself? If he really wanted to try to do that, he could set up an account. It’s not hard.
I completely agree Emily.
I wrote this blog from a neutral perspective, but that doesn’t mean that I am condoning what either business manager did. The opposite in fact. I don’t think that Lewis has any right to defend himself on being homophobic – it’s disgusting enough that he has that opinion in the first place, the fact that he publicised it is intolerable.
My angle here was merely that if you have any cause for complaint, the way you approach that complaint does contribute to the way the complaint is in turn handled. I’m not suggesting that there was no reason to complain.
Lianne
Your statement that the homophobic remark of some bar owner was ‘intolerable’ undermines what I read as a sober assessment of some of the recent twitterstorms over various ads and comments in Leeds. The point of tolerance is allowing opinions to be aired we disagree with. People should be allowed tweet what they like, and face the possibility of others disagreement, being ignored, or unfriended.
But what is becoming particularly worrying is an increasing censoriousness in the twittersphere – both in the reporting of what people tweet to the police, and a demand that people self-censor themselves lest they offend anyone. We seem to be walking rapidly into a very intolerant ‘you-can’t-say-that’ culture: as if certain opinions are beyond the pale and people shouldn’t be allowed to express them. We have even seen people arrested and imprisoned for what they’re tweeted and said on Facebook. Some of these instances have been jokes, others offensive remarks. Regardless, this should worry those who work in social media far more than the content of the messages.
Paul
Paul,
My apologies – in the article I was definitely choosing to remain neutral, but the comment section is appropriate for expressing opinions, I hope. I don’t mean to undermine the article itself.
I believe of course that everyone has a right to their own opinion, but if that opinion comes from a place of ignorance or prejudice then it can be damaging – both to the people the opinion affects, and to the person expressing the opinion.
Publishing his opinion is what harmed his business in this case, not having it.
I don’t know him personally, so I can’t say why he’s homophobic, if he is or if it was just a joke in poor taste.
Are we doing someone a disservice by not warning them, politely of course, that their comments are offensive? Or should we just let them have their opinion and never challenge it?
Some people know that they’re prejudiced and choose to hide it. I can understand why, as you say we live in a culture where people are less tolerant of the intolerant.
But some people genuinely don’t know that they’re prejudiced – for example my Nana used to often make racist or homophobic comments and had no idea that she was being offensive until I brought her up on it. I must admit I’ve often said, “Nan, you can’t SAY things like that any more!”
She doesn’t mean any harm, she’s old and stuck in her ways and from a different generation, but the number of times she’s made an offhand comment and I’ve seen someone bristle and give her a mouthful back… I’d rather tell her gently that her opinions are harmful and give her an opportunity to rethink them.
That’s why I suggested finding out the context of a person’s comment before reacting. And why reacting in a non-aggressive manner will not immediately put that person on the defensive and escalate the situation, rather than diffuse it.
Lianne
You say ‘are we doing someone a disservice by not warning them, politely, that their comments are offensive’. But who are any of us to ‘warn’ anyone of the offensiveness of their comments? As I’ve said, we can disagree with what people write (and I don’t agree we have to be polite about it).
What was good about social media is that it promised complete freedom of expression beyond the reach of governments. That’s sadly proved not to be the case, here in the UK and the rest of the world. But we also have to be careful not encourage self-censorship or speech-codes that close down debate or views, no matter how obnoxious, because they are deemed ‘offensive’. But, equally, being tolerant of views we disagree with doesn’t mean that we never challenge them – I think we both agree that we should. But to be able to challenge those views we need the freedom to say whatever we want in whatever manner.
Paul
Funnily enough, I had a draft of my blogpost that I deleted that was along these lines. I think that there was a good, valiant reason to pull up these companies on what they’d done, but there was a point where it edged into bloodthirst.
I for one thought some people were going a bit far in their “feedback” to the businesses, which was interpreted as somehow endorsing or supporting these abhorrent views. Which in turn ended up with me getting some pretty nasty abuse, demanding I support and explain my position over and over.
I blocked them in the end. It was just easier. I didn’t agree with the companies stance, but when you have to go on the defensive for not condemning something strongly enough, it doesn’t help the cause. In the end I *did* feel sympathy for the business owners – which I didn’t feel before I was dragged into it.
In the case of the hot dogs, I found the poster offensive, and thought the way the comments were handled was poor but I voiced that privately and respectfully and my opinion was valued.
I truly believe that the complaint management process holds equal responsibility for the person complaining – if you want your complaint to be considered and resolved, then your approach should reflect that.
You’re quite right Sean, in this case it was bloodthirsty. If someone had walked into the shop and asked him to take the poster down, I have no doubt that he would have done so and apologised.
Paul, I have no desire for people to be censored – everyone should have a right to say what they think but in any civilised society, if we see conflict brewing, I don’t see anything wrong with hoping to diffuse it.
If you can say hand on your heart that someone has been knowingly offensive then they are inviting controversy and that’s their choice. Not everyone realises what they say is offensive, however and that’s why approaching them politely and giving them the opportunity to explain, apologise, retract is far more constructive than simply giving them abuse.
Err Lianne in what way is the owner of Milo a proven homophobe? Who brought the case and when was it judged? Or is a twat of twitterers now the judicial base of our society?
He made a comment that read without any understanding of the context appears sick. But what was the context? I don’t know, do you? He could be a homophobe but equally he could be someone makes such comments to get a rise. A number of comedians make a damn good living out of the latter.
This vigilante mentality trend on Twitter is extremely worrying. Especially as we are about to enter a period of serious economic unease. Where will it end? With doors being marked in black in and yellow? I hope not.
My blog was about three recent twitter scandals in Leeds; one of which happened to be the owner of Milo making a homophobic comment.
Whether it was meant in jest or not, likening homosexuality to paedophilia and suggesting that Pride day is a celebration of abnormality IS a homophobic comment and that is what people reacted to.
I did not accuse him of personally being a homophobe, in fact in the comments above I even said “I don’t know him personally, so I can’t say why he’s homophobic, if he is or if it was just a joke in poor taste”
The purpose of this blog was also to urge people to seek a context before reacting strongly and blowing something out of proportion.
But that’s my point. His comment at present is not homophobic. It is merely a comment. Until some context is provided it will remain that way. Calling it homophobic is prejudice in itself and following that up with saying ‘the homophobe in question’ is quantifying that prejudice.
The fact that so many people can create a judgement without evidence is extremely worrying. Worse still is people calling for his business to be boycotted. That is a commercial witch hunt.
This really interests me – in what way do you feel that it is not homophobic?
Simply because there is no evidence to suggest it is or it is not homophobic. If he had spoken those words we may know from his tone and facial expressions in what way it was meant.
Unfortunately it’s in black and white. Print does not always allow tone and meaning to be expressed. Look at how some people use winks, smiley faces etc to add expression to what they are saying. A great recent example is the case of the chap who joked about bombing an airport.
All we have to go on is this comment. No one has any of other evidence or history that he is or isn’t homophobe. There was the snippet tweeted by the chap who challenged him on Facebook. But that was essentially flawed as he accused him of being homophobic instead of asking the context of the remark. Therefore, his reply was always going to tainted especially as his livelihood was brought into question. The irony of this conversation was that the accuser used historically homophobic language to forecast the future state of Lewis’ business(!)
British society is underpinned by freedom of speech and evidence based assessments. In this case many people have drawn their own conclusions on insufficient evidence. That to me is extremely worrying.
That was exactly the point of my blog – that people absolutely SHOULD find a context.
I couldn’t agree more.
It is bizarre trying to contextualise this sort of idiotic homophobia. What next – the EDL not so bad in the context of modern post war fascist thinking?
The comment as seen on the screengrab – whether made privately or not – is offensive/stupid and – in your own drippy word – is impolite.
Haven’t heard the word drippy for a while! I think it’s due a revival…
Personally I do believe Lewis’ comment was homophobic (again, I don’t know him personally so I can’t say whether it was not meant to be taken seriously or whether he is genuinely a homophobe before anyone else jumps down my throat!), but outside of the 3 examples of recent controversy – I think there are a lot of examples in our general social circles and in the wider media where people are guilty of poor communication skills as almost often as they are guilty of ignorance, prejudice and bigotry.
It might not be necessary to contextualise everything that offends us, but ambiguity rules the internet these days!
I don’t think I’m a stupid person. But then again, I do sometimes say stupid things.
I don’t believe Lewis is homophobic per se. But he did say a homophobic thing.
I’m not sure what context could possibly not make those words homophobic. Apart from prefacing with “Wow, wouldn’t it be really homophobic to say…” And then ending with “? I’m glad I wouldn’t ever mean anything like that.”
A very good point Sean!!