Hot on the heels of the rather offensive behaviour of some Twitter users (otherwise known as “trolls”) who hurled abuse at Caroline Criado-Perez who was campaigning for putting Jane Austen on British Banknotes, and Twitter saying sorry and planning to take action against said Twitter users, there was a boycott of sorts today on the social media service. The hashtag #twittersilence has been trending all day. Journalist Caitlin Moran, who who came up with the idea, writes: “I’m pro the mooted 24-hour walk-out on 4th of August, because not only is it a symbolic act of solidarity – which are my favourite kinds of symbolic acts – but because it will also focus minds at Twitter to come up with their own solution to the abuses of their private company.”
Now, I’m all for forcing companies to take responsibility. But I am not sure how effective this will be. Yes, the hashtag #twittersilence is a trending topic, but trending topics don’t change the behaviour of jerks and losers who have nothing better to do than to do stupid things like we’ve seen this week. I think what needs to happen is the jerks who behave like this need to be called out and highlighted so that the world can see them for the losers they are. Here’s a suggestion from CNN presenter Piers Morgan who is often the target of trolls:
I tend to agree. And Mr. Morgan’s methods are unconventional, but I have to admit that I think they may be effective. If we all did a version of what he did, trolls would go back to being something in children’s fairytale books.
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This entry was posted on August 4, 2013 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Twitter Users Protest Trolls With A Boycott: #TwitterSilence
Hot on the heels of the rather offensive behaviour of some Twitter users (otherwise known as “trolls”) who hurled abuse at Caroline Criado-Perez who was campaigning for putting Jane Austen on British Banknotes, and Twitter saying sorry and planning to take action against said Twitter users, there was a boycott of sorts today on the social media service. The hashtag #twittersilence has been trending all day. Journalist Caitlin Moran, who who came up with the idea, writes: “I’m pro the mooted 24-hour walk-out on 4th of August, because not only is it a symbolic act of solidarity – which are my favourite kinds of symbolic acts – but because it will also focus minds at Twitter to come up with their own solution to the abuses of their private company.”
Now, I’m all for forcing companies to take responsibility. But I am not sure how effective this will be. Yes, the hashtag #twittersilence is a trending topic, but trending topics don’t change the behaviour of jerks and losers who have nothing better to do than to do stupid things like we’ve seen this week. I think what needs to happen is the jerks who behave like this need to be called out and highlighted so that the world can see them for the losers they are. Here’s a suggestion from CNN presenter Piers Morgan who is often the target of trolls:
I tend to agree. And Mr. Morgan’s methods are unconventional, but I have to admit that I think they may be effective. If we all did a version of what he did, trolls would go back to being something in children’s fairytale books.
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This entry was posted on August 4, 2013 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.