ABOUT nine months ago, I stopped being an active user of Twitter. I didn’t do what certain Scottish journalists have done. There’s a pattern to leaving Twitter if you’re in the Scottish media. Announce loudly on the social media platform that you are leaving, flounce off in a huff, then write an anguished article for the anti-independence press about how dreadful it is to be abused by vile cybernats.
This is frequently accompanied by a photie of the writer looking wan. Then a few days later you come back to Twitter after getting some useful publicity and a fee for the article.
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Maybe I was missing a trick, but I just left. There are very limited outlets in the Scottish media for anguished articles about how you’re being abused on social media by vile British nationalists. I certainly came in for more than my fair share of personal abuse on social media from opponents of independence.
Some of the biggest and nastiest bullies on Twitter are prominent opponents of independence. But that’s not why I left.
I didn’t leave Twitter because I found myself the subject of some wild-eyed and frothy conspiracy theories put about by certain people on the fringes of the independence movement. Neither was it because I was fed up with constantly being asked to take sides in disputes between independence supporters. When you have a degree of prominence in a grassroots movement, that sort of thing comes with the territory.
The real reason for leaving the platform is because it turns everyone who uses it into a bully. The more followers you have on Twitter, the bigger the bully you become. That happens even when you strenuously attempt to avoid it, even when you strongly disavow it. It’s inherent in the way that Twitter is designed.
On Twitter you disagree with someone, your disagreement can then be seen by people who follow you on the platform. The more followers you have, the more people are likely to see the exchange. The more people who see the exchange, the more likely it is that someone else will join in, which means that the exchange can now be seen by everyone who follows that person too, which in turn makes it more likely that yet more people will join in. Before you know it there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people piling in to share your displeasure. It’s called dog-piling. It’s exponential shaming, and when you’re the subject of it it feels like abuse.
We are quick to see ourselves as victims, and people in the British nationalist media in Scotland are expert at claiming victimhood, but we are very slow to recognise how our actions might lead to others being victimised. By virtue of having prominence in the media, Scottish media people tend to have followers who number in the thousands. The more followers you have, the greater the power you have on the platform.
When someone in the Scottish media disagrees with someone else on Twitter, there is enormous potential for dog-piling. That’s even more the case because Scottish people in general can be sharp-tongued and not inclined to take prisoners. Twitter favours instant reactions, not all disagreements are going to be polite and measured. That sets the tone and encourages even sharper responses from those piling in. The more responses there are, the more likely it is that some of them will cross the line between criticism and personal abuse. The more responses there are, the more people feel enabled to join in. It’s a vicious circle, in this case a circle of viciousness.
Insults and hurtful comments posted on the internet never go away. Weeks and months later, the hurt and upset can still be posted at the person who was its target. It’s a constant reminder like a leper’s bell. There’s no escape and no forgetting.
Simply by having thousands of followers, you enable bullying, even if that was the furthest thing from your mind, even if you had not the slightest intention of doing so. Far too many prominent Twitter users, people with thousands of followers, don’t pause to consider the hurt and upset that they unleash. No side in Scotland’s constitutional debate is innocent, but some of the worst offenders are prominent opponents of independence. The real reason that I left Twitter was because I don’t wish to be a party to bullying, even unintentional bullying.
We’re very good as a species at taking note of slights and insults. We obsess about perceived slurs, but we take compliments for granted. It’s hardwired into us as human beings. Threats are significant for our very survival, so over millions of years of evolution we have been primed to pay attention to them. Praise doesn’t threaten our survival, so we pay it less heed. That means that it’s not the 95% of positive and supportive comments that we obsess over, it’s the small minority of negative ones.
Twitter magnifies negativity until it can seem overwhelming. When you have thousands of Twitter followers, you sit at the top of a chain of negativity without necessarily being aware of how it cascades down from you. The more Twitter followers you have, the greater the emotional havoc you can unwittingly wreak. Then someone pushes back at you, and you flounce off and write a newspaper column about how you’re the real victim here. But most people don’t have the opportunity to flounce off and write newspaper columns. They’re just left with the feeling of victimisation, the horrible disempowering sensation of being at the bottom of the dog-pile.
The next time, and there will be a next time, that some prominent opponent of independence takes to the press to complain about Twitter abuse, remember that this isn’t something peculiar to the independence debate. Twitter abuse isn’t a bug in the system that can be cured. It’s a feature. I don’t want to be a part of it.
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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