THE UGLY side of Social Media, or in reality Unsocial Media, is on display again with attacks on Australian ABC News Breakfast presenter Lisa Millar.
The attacks may include criticism of her performance in her work role but as she reports they are mostly attacks on her appearance and her family.
There are two sets of people to actually criticise in relation to the bullying that occurs ā those that do it and those that allow it to happen.
The first group, usually anonymous because they are cowards, seem to derive some pleasure from putting others down and thus thinking they are better. But they are mistaken. They rarely have anything positive to say or worth listening to. The negative approach is the path losers take.
The second group are those that own Social Media platforms or run them as they permit material that should get someone jailed. If they were responsible, or made responsible, for everything that appears they might actually do something about it.
The words of David Morrison: āThe standard you walk past is the standard you acceptā are still as apt as when said.
Get off social media if you are a troll. Get out of your mum’s basement and go out into the sunlight.
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Gone maybe
There are reports that Elon Musk has fired 3,700 people from their Twitter jobs, about half of the total staff.
Apart from the first four senior staff sacked by Musk it is unlikely he would have any idea of who the others are or what this will do to their lives. He has stopped their internal email accounts, so they won’t have the opportunity to tell him what they think.
It seems odd that they are being told by email; couldn’t they just receive a message via Twitter, or doesn’t he trust it enough?
Most people get fired on site, possibly too time consuming if he has to meet, greet and exit 3,700 people.
The other option, a bit more cowardly, was to send a letter by mail although this might take a while to get through and as he has just spent US$44 billion, he might not have enough left for the stamps and envelopes.
As one of the few people in the world that doesn’t use social media, I am unsure what the magic of Twitter is and from what I read Facebook usage is declining. Maybe my old Myspace site is still there although I haven’t checked it for a decade or so. I think we all need to go outside and smell the flowers or see whatever nature is offering in your own local area. It will make your day a bit better or worse depending on where you live but at least it will be real. <dfitzger@melbpc.org.au>/PN
