Every now and then something will crop up and make me think a little bit more than usual, you know something that you relate to or really narks you. Usually it’s the latter with me. I was particularly riled at the time when I wrote this post about child protection, feeling fat in a certain clothes shop and then when the blagger debate rose it’s head I felt I had to put my two pennies worth in. Now this makes me sound self righteous and that I that I know all the answers, of which I don’t of course. I am for the most part quite a relaxed person who would rather be pleasant to people even if they are not so pleasant back. Partly this is because it makes life easier for the most part and because confrontation can be uneasy and draining. This is not to say I don’t do confrontation, push me too far and I will confront people and if I feel really passionate about something then I will usually walk away shaking, never a good thing but sometimes there is a need for it. I have a line and boundaries as I think we all do.
So back to the title of this post, twitter sniping. This is a subject that I stumbled across earlier whilst browsing through my timeline, having been absent from twitter the afternoon before, I thought I would have a nose to see what was going on and stumbled across some ‘sniping’. Maybe I have been lucky so far to have not been embroiled in a disagreement on twitter or perhaps it is down to the fact I a) don’t tweet a lot or b) am careful about what I say. I think it is a combination of the two with some luck thrown in. Since I have been on twitter I have noticed that every now and then a spat will develop between individuals or more often than not ‘cliquey’ groups and I sit there reading in disbelief at what some people find acceptable to tweet to others.
You could be forgiven for thinking that school children are indeed behind the jibes and usually there will be once person under attack and their vulnerability apparent for all to see. It all depends of course on the type of people involved and to be part of a conversation on twitter you need to have a backbone to start with if you are going to tweet certain subjects. Unfortunately I see a lot of people that don’t seem to take criticism too well and I wonder how on earth they get through the day without being a bag of nerves. We’re all human and we all have opinions, I understand that, what I find fascinating is that some people find it acceptable to attack people because they assume their belief is the right one and this then encourages all and sundry to jump on the bandwagon of abuse. The worst is when they then bicker about the person who has raised their heckles in separate tweets or more commonly referred to as bitching. It might be no better but if somebody feels the need to do that then they should be gracious enough to message the other person privately.
I would imagine it’s difficult to not get offended by somebody openly challenging you and I know that if you choose to be part of twitter then you leave yourself open for your followers on non followers to contact you. We have all heard about the twitter wars that go on between celebrities and as great as it is unfortunately it is the downside to publishing snippets of your every move, which are subject to review from others. Some people in my opinion write far too much and shouldn’t be surprised with getting varying responses, or is that what some are looking for? Maybe people see me as sitting on the fence and not wanting to aggravate anyone, it’s not that, I just think it’s terribly mean to victimise someone and bring them down. Especially when people have the cover of being behind the internet and probably have never met the person nor are they likely to.
The fact that you can only write a certain amount of characters in a tweet can leave them open for interpretation the same as text messages, people will always assume and may get the wrong end of the stick making a conversation change direction and get out of hand. I think it’s important to consider that when you are tweeting others and to think of the repercussions. For me it boils down to what you are willing to say to others in life generally, I do not treat twitter any differently. I will often read and move on, I have my viewpoint, so do they. Sometimes less is more.
I am interested to know what everyone else’s take on this is and have you experienced bullying type behaviour on twitter, be it yourself or your friends?
Great post! I stay well away from any Twitter bitchin…it actually curls my toes whenever I see it in my timeline and I often ‘unfollow’ people who do it. There is a huge difference between giving an open, honest opinion and just being a nasty bitch. I actually think a lot of it is cyber bullying.
I unfollow too when I see unnecessary tweets from people, they’re not the sort of people I want following me either…
Ooooh, is it wrong of me that I kind of wish I knew what you were reading that inspired this?
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you’ve said though. I think some people tweet too quickly and don’t always consider the tone that is interpreted from what they’ve written.
I do also think that some people seem to court a bit of controversy and like nothing better than a bit of an argument, just like different people in life I guess. But I, like you, like to stay out of it. We are all different with different opinions and if I read something I don’t like or agree with then I just move on. I think most people do to be honest.
A great post. x
No not at all, I would be the same! You are right there are naturally people out there who like to cause trouble and unrest and unfortunately twitter provides a platform for that x
Well said. I have no idea what happened to spark this and luckily haven’t seen any of it in my timeline but I have read things before that have made me wondered how old the people writing them were – as in school age! I tend to stay out of any major discussions on Twitter, there is one topic that I feel kind of strongly about but I will never get involved, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I’m on Twitter for friendly chat not for heated discussions. I think people to hide behind the internet, if they were on the phone to that person I doubt they would act as badly xx
I agree I have some topics I feel strongly about but there are always people out there that feel just as strongly the opposite, with no scruples so sometimes voicing opinions doesn’t get you anywhere x
Great post chick- and I agree with everything you have said- I don’t understand the bitchiness of twitter at all, even if I see an opinion I disagree with I am just not the type of person to confront another- after all we are all entitled to our own opinions. I especially don’t see the point in hiding behind a computer screen doing it either. Unfortunately there are bullies in all aspects of our daily lives even online.
x
Very true these people are everywhere in our lives, the sort that will swear black is white, just to be awkward and confrontational. Good job it’s outweighed by all the nice tweeps out there 🙂 x
couldn’t agree more with you, you have written exactly what I think a lot of the time. It’s just like being in the playground sometimes & I’m glad there are lots of lovely tweeters out there that make it a nice place to hang out…shame that some ruin it for the rest
x
I know exactly what you mean. It is hard also to know exactly how a tweet is meant to be taken. I got into a discussion with a well liked celebrity who turned out to have irresponsible and naive views on alcoholism. (in my opinion anyway) I promptly unfollowed and it has completely tainted my view on them. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
HI, I don’t know how I missed this post back when you wrote it, and even now I have found it via searching the subject on Google. Glad you appeared.
I wrote a post about this subject on Thursday, and so that people wouldn’t ask what I was referring to I included the tweets (even the good ones as it was a balanced piece).
I only did ONE tweet about the post and for 2 days it had little attention and I was glad as I hadn’t intended to create a storm. During that time I went about my life.
Then Saturday night ALL HELL broke loose on Twitter between 9 and 10 p.m. and I had 1,150 hits on my blog. Rather than feeling happy about that, I completely felt cyber bullied.
Result being the post came down – I thought that may put an end to it but sadly there are still murmurings.
What people failed to see was that it wasn’t directed at what kicked it off it was directed at the bitching that happened AFTER (about brain cells etc). The exact same thing you describe above. You describe it so well above.
So it is fine to have a difference of opinion but the unnecessary snipes after – really!?!?!?
The tweets exchanged with me did not make me write the post (the people who commented on my post got that) it was the tweets that happened after (while I was at work) that I saw in the evening when I got home.
I (in a moment of madness) thought, I am not having this. But I included all tweets, good and bad so people could make their own minds up.
Resulting in some people saying I don’t see the problem (proof it was balanced) yet I still got hung out to dry. Or maybe just hung! wondered why my neck was sore LOL
Liska x