A couple of days ago, I wrote about Fake-Twitter and concerns of how it could be misused.
As a (partial) result, the site received an official takedown notice from Twitter and I received some of the most heated and angry comments ever from a post.
That’s cool. People have opinions and sometimes these opinions are strong, and the comment section is where these opinions are allowed to be expressed.
It’s one of the reasons that I have an open comment policy. Some people emailed me asking why I was allowing the comments to stay when a lot were personal and derogatory. Simple – I believe in free speech and the right to air grievances. Of course my post wasn’t going to be popular with everyone and the comments bore that out.
But, as I say, that’s people’s prerogative and I won’t stifle that. Where I will (and did) draw the line is when you attack my readers and others leaving comments. If you have a gripe with me, fine, take that out on me – I’m big enough and ugly enough to take the heat.
But the community that are sharing their views? If you attack them with vitriol and over-the-top abuse, I will delete your comment. I think that’s fair.
Speaking of community, that’s one thing that was a positive result of the post, no matter what “side” you were on.
Although it led to some pretty personal comments against me, the response from the Tumblr community in particular was actually pretty cool to see. These are the friends of one of the guys who came up with the whole Fake-Twitter idea.
When it became clear that “one of their own” was involved, they quickly got together and started posting humorous parodies of me on Tumblr, along with their comments on the post itself.
While I may not be a fan of the personal attack over reasoned argument, it can’t be denied that the community spirit that I believe in and encourage was present. For that, I congratulate them.
We may not always agree on everything; we may not always agree on most things. But one thing we can agree on is that community and support is the way forward – isn’t it?
