In general, people don’t play nice
on the internet—see GIFT or the
comment section on any YouTube video for further reference. What I’ve never
understood is why, why people act
like bullying jerks just because they can get away with it. I don’t get why
treating someone like total shit is in anyway beneficial.
For example, several months ago I
saw a tweet that said something like “If you unfollow me because of what I say,
I will block AND report you!” First, let’s get it out of the way: block and report on Twitter doesn't automatically result in ANYTHING. If you get a Direct Message that says
“LOL look at this picture of you I found online” or accidentally mention the
word computer and get fifty million replies to buy one, you can click on the
options button and select “Block and report for spam” and it keeps the person
from tweeting at you again. It does not necessarily suspend them, although having a report can cause sometimes non-spammers to be suspended. Now, f you are being harassed, you can fill out a form to report people,
but that’s not what this person threatened to do (not like that would have been right, either).
This person used the
block-and-report as a threat. Keep following me (and listening to my unpleasant
rants) or I’ll get you in trouble. I had to deal with this crap in middle
school. It was why I was happy to get out of there. People told me that things
were supposed to get better once I was out of school. Well, they lied.
These days, the internet is freaking
middle school, and we’re all students trying to psychologically destroy each
other. The teachers are the social networking sites, the YouTubes, the
Twitters, the Facebooks, who have these rules and don’t really enforce them
because they don’t really care, but might if someone screams loud enough—and
that’s usually the bullies. Follow me or I’ll report you.
What did I do about that Tweeter?
Blocked her, naturally. One benefit of being bullied for six solid years in school is
that I have no interest in giving in. If you act vicious and hateful online
(not that any of you would, thankfully), I will stop following you. Freedom of speech
doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
