I believe that we should all adopt a policy
of completely ignoring anyone who choices to remain anonymous while interacting in a rude and insulting manner with us through social media. In fact, I think that in some instances it is
actually worthwhile for us to ‘block’ anonymous individuals completely so that
we just don’t see what they have to say.
It has become quite obvious to me that
people who keep their true identity hidden tend to be rather obnoxious
individuals. Any interaction with them, especially if one disagrees with them,
in my personal experience, generally always proves to be a very upsetting and
frustrating experience.
The problem with these anonymous individuals
is that they really have nothing to lose. They can be rude and insulting
without any consequence. They bait you into a reaction. The moment you respond
to their insult or rudeness, especially if you choose to do so with an
equivalent retaliatory insult, you have lost. The whole world has just
witnessed your behaviour. As for the anonymous individual, well the world has
witnessed nothing except some fake identity being insulting and rude.
I am convinced that one of the key solutions
to ridding the world of trolls on social media is through all of us beginning by
simply ignoring rude and insulting anonymous individuals. Bloggers should simply refuse to allow anyone
the ability to post comments on their Blog if they do not disclose their true
identity to everyone on the site, especially if the individual chooses to engage others in a manner that is considered rude and insulting. On Twitter, anonymous individuals who are rude and insulting should be ignored or, depending on the level of their behaviour, even blocked.
We should apply this policy of ignoring
or blocking anonymous rude and insulting individuals even when these anonymous individuals support our own views or opinions. If any anonymous individual supports our
opinion by being rude and insulting to those individuals who disagree with us,
we should act against the individual as if we were personal insulted.
Having our point of view supported is simply not worth tolerating another
person being on the receiving end of insults and rudeness.
In a recent interaction with an anonymous
individual who went by the name ‘Rifleman819’, he or she argued that there were
valid grounds for remaining anonymous. This is of course complete and utter
tripe. Anonymous individuals who interact rudely with others while insisting on remaining anonymous are quite frankly cowards. There is absolutely no
justification whatsoever for anyone to remain anonymous on social media if they are also choosing to engage others by being insulting and rude.
Anyone who feels they have to remain
anonymous on social media must reconsider whether they should actually be on
social media. If there is a valid reason for not being known on social media,
then possibly they should simply not be on social media, period. If they still feel they should be on social media, they need to be extra cautious about the way they interact with others. Rudeness, being insulting, etc., should simply not be on the cards for those who have to engage anonymously on social media, even if they are themselves on the receiving end of such abuse. Call it the price of anonymity.
Let's not forget that any person who is going onto social media under an anonymous
identity because he or she cannot do so under their real identity means that
they may possibly be deceiving someone. Do we really want to be interacting with duplicitous
characters like this? They are clearly leading a double life, behaving in one-way to those
who know them and another way to those who don’t. (As for the Blogger who
allows this type of individual on their Blog. What kind of Blog are you
running? What does tolerating this individual say about you as a Blogger?)
