Green inkers evolve into cyber-bullying trolls — new technology, same mentality

CREDIT where credit is due: this Government isn't hanging about. It took Fianna Fáil years to become as smug and complacent as they were by the time the electorate put them in the sin-bin. But this lot hit the ground running. They bypassed that sanctimonious 'new broom and we will be different' phase and slipped smoothly into 'what can we do?' mode. Minister for Propaganda Bunny Rabbit was on the airwaves he controls the other day, castigating the ungrateful hacks he thinks are giving him and his ilk a hard time of it. The Spinmeister of Irish politics is less than subtly threatening us that if we don't say nice things about his rotten Government he'll take our toys away. But, we whine, what about that social media shower, why don't you put manners on them? We were here first, and better the devil you know.[private] There's a bit of a feeding frenzy in media circles these days. The social media fox has got into the old media henhouse and no one is quite sure how to approach it. Some say let it gorge itself until it's satiated and it'll go away. Others want to give it both barrels and pity about it if a few innocent chickens are collateral damage. Thrown into this heady mix is suicide. Society is beating about trying to figure out this problem and to do this, a cause or culprit must be identified. It can't be society itself because it seems to be working fine for those who decide on such things. No, it must be something else â€â€ social media, for example. It's an unknown quantity, not easily controlled, so it's a threat. If it can be tamed, then we'll be safe. If we can control it, even better. First, let's load cyber-bullying onto a scapegoat, like the Greeks of old, and run it into the hills. We like to think we're evolved, sophisticated and rational beings. But deep down, we're frightened cave dwellers. If we can make sacrifices, banish the interloper and appease the gods, then all will be well in our world. Won't it? Maybe not, but some of the worst excesses of social media will be resolved once a way is found to hit its profiteers in the pocket â€â€ first twitter strike to Abbey man Declan Ganley this week. However, even if these sites were to disappear, the trolls would simply go back to poison-pen letters or public lynchings. Social media may facilitate the 21st century mob, but 19th century scandal sheets provided pretty much the same platform. The technology may be evolving â€â€ we're clearly not. The most offensive and obnoxious comments I've ever encountered have been transmitted via the old-fashioned nod and wink, face to face, and behind backs. Gossip and rumour have been destroying lives throughout human history. Only the means of communication is changing, not the malice communicated. In the pre-cyber days of journalism, this phenomenon was known as the 'green-ink letter'. Green ink letters BUT where has the 'green-ink' brigade gone â€â€ yes â€â€ they're screeching with the trolls online. In the newspaper industry a 'green-ink letter' is a standard euphemism for a 'nutcase' correspondent. In the good old days when eccentrics, conspiracy theorists and the odd lunatic could still summon up the initiative to put pen to paper, many of them showed a preference for green ink. Sadly for the Post Office, stationery suppliers and the manufacturers of green biros, this kind of letter-writing is now a dying art. Instead of ranting in spiky green ink about alien abduction and how the council is keeping us ignorant of the proclivities of local politicos for 'eating over the fence' by doping us with hallucinogens in the water supply, they can now circumvent the bothersome filter of an editor, the restrictive practices imposed by syntax and grammar and our irksome defamation laws, and vent online â€â€ or so they think. How I miss the good old days when you never knew what hand grenade you'd find lurking in the post. Although these missives were generally unsigned, there was usually great sport to be had in trying to put a name on the sender. My parentage was questioned on such a regular basis that I had to sit my mother down and ask her some very direct questions. She muttered something about hospital mix-ups not being uncommon, but would say no more. Back in the antediluvian days when Riverdance first stalked the land, I was sent off into the wilderness to interview a comely maiden who had been chosen to flash her knickers on the international stage. She was a grand girl who supplied a photo of herself in her stage gear and a few details of her dancing career. Job done. Straightforward enough â€â€ you might think â€â€ until the story appeared in print. Well, the abuse I got, mainly from the mothers of Clydesdale-like cailíns who, I suspected, hadn't made the grade. Most of the ire was focused on her CV. She hadn't won this, that wasn't an official gig, and the other gong she won was for sheep shearing, not the Siege of Ennis. That sort of thing. Never before or since have I received such an avalanche of vitriol via post and phone. This was in pre-email days, but nothing the worldwide web has since delivered has ever matched it. Things eventually settled down, as they do, and I continued my work a sadder but no wiser man. Then, one morning, on my desk, there was an envelope sporting an exotic stamp. It was from the Mata Hari of the Irish dancing world. She'd promised to send on a snap of herself hoofing it in foreign climes. Indeed, she looked as lovely as only jiggers in their post-wig stage can. What could I do but stick it in a page and head for the fallout shelter? Maybe that storm had passed, maybe, I hoped, nobody would notice. Wishful thinking. I had at the time a rather mischievous colleague who was partial to practical jokes. The photo went into the page with my name beside it. Herself in Japan or wherever, enjoying life with Michael Flatfoot or whoever, all just as it should be. Except when I left the room, my colleague got busy. He bestowed on the unobjectionable girl more titles than the King of Albania had awards. Champion of the World, Universe and Cosmos were among the more modest accolades. The paper went to print. The shit hit the fan. The thing went viral, and this was long before we knew what viral was. By series end, I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd received an earful or eyeful of abuse from planet Zog disputing some title or other. Sadly, I didn't keep mementoes of the more obscene broadsides. Little did I know they would be rendered obsolete by the advent of Twitter and Co. What I do recall is taking a phone call from yet another cow whose heifer of a daughter didn't get to tread her hooves on Michael's toes. After burning the ear off me for a few minutes, and before banging down the phone, she yelled: 'You're probably sleeping with her, ya dirty...' Sorry, this is a family paper, as we in the business say. I gave up covering Irish dancing after that. Dyed orange children with spring-loaded ringlets topping costumes with psychedelic designs of regurgitated spaghetti Bolognese lost their allure after my experience at the Irish dancing frontline. I took time out at the Orange parade at Drumcree, which I was given as a sort of R&R posting, to allow my frazzled nerves to recover. Don't feed the trolls TODAY, those mothers wouldn't bother to contact me directly. They'd have a site somewhere where they could post nasty things about me, and I'd be none the wiser. Because unless I'm daft enough, or have developed a belated taste for masochism; at my age there are only so many shades of grey a man can handle, I'm hardly likely to go searching out these references to myself. It reminds me of a cartoon I once saw featuring a policeman saying to a woman: 'Madam, if you were that upset by these obscene phone calls, you wouldn't keep accepting the charges.' I was bullied and, miserably, I bullied in turn before most people had a phone in their homes, never mind a broadband connection. The cruelty of adolescence doesn't need technology to facilitate it and you don't need to go online to know there are some truly bitter and twisted people around. So instead of another Government committee (to add to the interminable layers of Government committees) to devise unimplementable strategies on cyber-bullying and online abuse, we might think about using whatever resources are available to teach the young, in particular, how best to protect themselves from the dark side they will inevitably encounter in others and in themselves. Debate is great, knowledge is power and having facts at your fingertips is progress. But there is a price to be paid for living in an environment of instant communication. It's not enough any more to stop feeding the trolls â€â€ they need to know society is never going to invite them home for dinner. Quote of the Week 'I've joined an anti-social site. It's called Shutyerfacebook.' â€â€ Anon[/private]