Guest Column: Why do social media users choose to intentionally add to someone’s pain?
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on September 8, 2018.
I spent my first few years of life in Communist Germany, the second of three children. My dad had spoken out once too often at town meetings and was in danger of being imprisoned. Mother and father hatched a plan of escape. It worked, and we found ourselves in West Berlin, the escape route for those fleeing the oppression of the Soviet satellite states. After six months in a refuge camp, our family of five was adopted by a church in a place called Medicine Hat. My father had applied to numerous countries — America, Canada and Argentina among them. A group of strangers in an unpronounceable place took us in. The move was uncomplicated since we had nothing — no money, no identity papers, no clothes, no ties to the past and no understanding of where we were going. All my parents wanted was a safe place for their children to grow up and a fair chance at a little prosperity. Like so many immigrants, within a year my parents found jobs, paid back the debt to the government, had begun to speak a little English, and had made friends with Canadians at work and in the neighbourhood. But we were immersed in strangeness. Some people didn’t like foreigners, couldn’t forget wartime stereotypes and propaganda, wanted us to go “back where we came from.” That, however, was a small price to pay for the privilege of being in this country, and soon we each found our way to become Canadian, and life was good. I hesitate to imagine what my life would be like if I was an immigrant to Canada now, a time characterized by the erosion of civility and the omnipresence and lawlessness of social media. Sites like Facebook and Twitter provide opportunity for anyone to malign anyone else. From the dark and poisonous anonymity of the internet, lonely, fearful, sometimes ignorant and angry individuals fling their arrows and stones, unconcerned about truth, context, or the validity of their messages, or the pain they may be causing. The favourite target these days seems to be immigrants from Muslim countries. According to the haters, all Muslims have multiple wives, practice Sharia law which harms women, hate Christianity, receive life-long stipends from our gutless government and are supporters of terrorism. If the haters would take a short minute or two to talk to an informed Muslim, or anyone else who’s taken the time, they would soon see that all of these charges are false. The scales would fall from their eyes (one would hope). The haters, however, need a scapegoat, some group they can slander over a beer or six amongst equally ill-informed friends — a longstanding Canadian tradition apparently. And one’s status as a hater is enhanced, they feel, whenever they post or repost another even more malicious bit of negative propaganda. And they righteously waddle away from their laptops content in the thought that they’ve added a little more poison to the world. So why do so many Facebook people have this need to destroy, to express hatred, to cause pain? Why not if they can get away with a crude little razor slash in the dark? An article in The New Yorker recently addressed the effect on a person reading negative comments about a posted picture of them. It was akin to slow murder. One negative tweet or post is just one little offensive act. No big deal. Multiplied a thousand times it becomes lethal. In Canada, unlike in the U.S., we recognize that no freedom is an absolute freedom. There are limits to our freedoms. In Canada we do not have the freedom to harm others, or to infringe upon others’ freedoms (from fear). We have laws against hate speech. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms are crawling with these deadly offerings. Those who thoughtlessly use these platforms to harm others should be held to account — should be prosecuted. As should the organizations themselves. I used to say to my Grade 9 students when I heard a negative comment in class, “All of us are, at times, secretly insecure and fragile and in pain. Why, knowing this, would we intentionally add to someone’s suffering? This will not be tolerated in this classroom. As humans we should be trying to lessen pain in the world, not adding to it. “ Why, knowing this, do we tolerate this violence in our social environment? Peter Mueller is a long-time resident of Medicine Hat who, in spite of all the evidence, continues to believe we can build a better world. 13-12
