Well, what a busy week for me while working on this blog. Not only did I work a total of 32 hours at my actual job, plus going out and seeing Transformers 3 for next Monday's review (one of the reasons I didn't post one this week). I also was doing research for this week by skipping last week. And the reason I did this goes back to the harassment topic I posted about last month, and the fact that while we are online, we have a semblance of Anonymity in who we are.
Now, I bring this up because of a news story posted by Yahoo news, in which a New York City football star was recently killed in a stabbing just after his graduation. The incident was between the player, his father, and two parking attendants, in which the father had a 200 dollar bottle of cologne in his car as a gift to his son for graduation. However, upon returning to the car, the bottle was missing. He immediately accused the attendants, a brawl ensued, and in the end, his son was stabbed and killed.
This is a tragic story, one that has a few angles on it that can be told, but that does not mean that the news aggregates have every side of it. They have the side that gets hits, and sells papers, they are in the best interests of themselves and making money. So why is it, when people are commenting on these stories, that the internet should protect their identities from their stupidity?
NYC Football Star stabbed to death
To reference the article in question, a follow up does state that the father was in the wrong. But ever since that story broke on Yahoo news, there has been a split between people who were supporting the father, those who were being completely racist, and those who were in the middle claiming neutrality. No matter what the events happening were, there is no reason that comments like those should be made, either online or in public.
The fact that a person is anonymous online is something that is well known. Ever since the start of online connection, not knowing who is on truly on the other end of your chat is the way things have been done. Only recently with the invention of social media and connection have we truly known who is there. But that doesn't mean that all websites have moved into this social space. Many web news aggregates do have connections with Facebook and Twitter, for instance, but very few really use the connection for their accounts, starting their own and leaving them signed in.
This present a danger online to anyone who has an opinion, and the internet, like other public domains, is a place where people deserve to have not only their opinions, but their identities secure and safe from repercussions. But with that safety net comes people who use the safety of that to hurt others, to send racist, homophobic, hateful rants and insults to people in a major online forum that they believe is their only for their beliefs and no one elses.
While one could argue that the internet has evolved from the original educational purpose of the internet, in no way did the internet evolve into a weapon of hate and anger that people turn forums and comments into on the web. Repeated bashing of opinions and personal character by people who don't even know you can take it's toll, in real life or online. It all depends on how a person perceives what is written or said about them. But that doesn't change the fact that words can hurt, and those people who use words for that very purpose need to realize the true consequence of their actions.
Now I am not saying that people can't have their opinions, that's wrong. People will always have opinions about groups of people as well as topics in the world. And through the power of the internet, these topics should be debated and discussed openly with logic and fact rather than biased rants and insults, throwing salt into open wounds.
When it comes to the human condition, I believe that Adam Sessler said it best in February 5th, 2009 Sessler's Soapbox podcast. In the cast, he mentioned the people who said that he took money from Microsoft to review games on their systems for better than they actually are. He asked a very simple question that kinda summed up how he felt about people flaming his personal character.
The question was: "Do you F*** your mother? Yeah, you don't like the implication of that. Don't impugn my integrity."
The fact is that people read these comments and take offense to them is true. I am not going to post anything here, a lot of them are just too offensive to post. But as we've seen previous examples, words do hurt people. Calling people racist names whether to their face, behind their back, or online is wrong. Insulting people and trying to hurt them is wrong. People need to think about their actions before getting into an argument about something and throwing words around that they do not understand.
Yes, someone did die, and he might not have been the complete A+ honor role student that the article makes him out to be, but we don't know what really truly happened, or who the kid really was. But it's not up to use to judge him for who he was or why he died. That's not our decision to make, nor is it our right to spew off hurt and hate on comments.
Now, if you want to have an intelligent debate on topics, many other people and I are on message boards and websites willing to have one. We know a wide variety of topics, and are willing to have a willing and intelligent conversation. But that doesn't mean we're going to or should accept hatred and racism, and words that can hurt. And people need to start making a change not only online, but in the real world as well.
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