The Twats That Twit

Well its been awhile hasn't it, I was going to just not bother anymore, as i have such a deficit of talent for writing. But given today's social media outrage i have decided that regardless of a lack of intelligence and requisite ability to formulate ideas into cohesive passages of thought, that i would once more don the cap of ignorance and re-re-reintroduce the Aldershot Woes (again). So it is with great pleasure i present episode something of TAWA... The Twats That Twit. 

Twitter, on one hand a tool that allows popular thought and opinion to flourish. A public outlet of free-thought and ideas that is not censored or controlled by any media body or government and is seemingly free of agenda. A true vehicle of cultural democracy. But on the other hand... a weapon for hate filled morons to anonymously and surreptitiously fling the dung of fear and disdain at anyone they chose. Safe in the knowledge that they can remain cozy and safe behind the screens of their i-Phones. 

I should like to point out to anyone who is now drawing a comparison between my damnation of web-based hatred and keyboard cowardice and the hate filled blog i write on the web safely behind my keyboard, that i use a laptop and not an iPhone, because i'm old school... But seriously, i'm aware of the irony, that's kind of the point of it.

There have been many cases recently of this hatred in 140 or less characters resulting in police action and prosecution. The most notable of late are 2 beastly looking creatures from the North (typical) who appear to take "trolling" so seriously that they have both been able to incorporate the idea into their appearance. Their digital beef was with feminist Caroline Ciado-Perez for working to have Jane Austen as the new "face" of the good old £10 note, replacing bearded botherer of creationism Charles Darwin. These 2 tweeeters were such avid fans of Mr Darwin's work that rather than traditional feminist ribbing (you know classic lesbo jokes and invitations to "get back in the kitchen!" Hilarious) this abuse took a rather dark and rapey twist. However the pair have now pleaded guilty to being a couple of dicks and are to be sentenced to some prison time or a fine or something. The ultimate irony of the pairs tweet's, an example of which is "I've only just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried!"  is that these 2 cast a shadow of doubt over Darwin's entire body of work...  can such people really be the result of 4.6 billion years of evolution?  

I had in my naivety considered the trolling problem to be one only perpetrated by social out-cast's and nerd's. Claiming a dominance over the digital playground they never had in the physical one. But today has shown that even the most level headed of people can resort to using Twitter to deliver irrational hatred. I am sorry to report this, but it looks like even good old footy fans have been micro-blogging bullshit. The most recent victim of large scale twit-buse is Stan Collymore, i know what your thinking, there are hundreds of really good reasons to smear hatred over Stan Collymore, he probably deserved it. Well you would be right, but also really really wrong. 

The reason Stan Collymore is getting horrific,.nasty, racist, threatening, abominable abuse is he suggested Luis Suarez may have gone down a bit easy to win a penalty... Both jokes aside, when you are so involved in your football team that when an experienced ex-player for your club damns you with faint and justified criticism you think that death threats and racism are a justified course of action, you really need help. 

In Collymore's defense he messaged Twitter directly and rather eloquently (especially when confined to the laws of twitter) asked why they were not doing more to combat this problem and why so many people were left free to bombard other people with the worst, vitriolic hate messages imaginable. Despite it actually being in contravene to the laws of the nation. So far Twitter are yet to respond, but in fairness it must be pretty hard to reasonably debate the complexities of free speech versus social responsibility within the confines of the 140 character system. 

And what do i think, well... I am an advocate of the freedom of speech, i think people should be free to say literally whatever they want. However i also hope that as a people we enlighten and educate ourselves to the position whereby even though people CAN say whatever they want...they are able to formulate an argument based on reason and honesty and have no need to fall back on the dark, the racist or the rapey, in order to get a message across.    

woe...

@defmoss83 (bring the hatred, you pussies)