The Internet as a Forum for Debate (Or: Living in Fear)

[icarus_chained]

WARNING: I've had it pointed out to me that the post could use a warning for those of us coming here (or living here) with social phobia/anxiety/ptsd issues. Many of us have come to this post to make their voices heard, and I'm doing my best to make it a safe space, but the fact remains that this post and the comments to it may be triggery for you. I don't want to have to say tread carefully, but it wouldn't hurt. *shamefaced* I apologise for not putting this up sooner.

IMPORTANT EDIT: This is NOT, repeat NOT, intended as an actual part of any of the current debates ongoing online. Someone alerted me below that some people may have this issue with the post:

Commentor: "I feel compelled to add at this point that, despite my engaging you on the topic of how to navigate fandom debate when aspects of it trigger you---ultimately this post is derailing when taken in the greater context of the Fails being discussed by fandom at this time. What this post is ultimately about is an issue very specific and personal to you, it is about your discomfort. And since it is in your journal and probably wasn't intended as part of the greater debate, you had every right to talk about your discomfort instead of the topics being focused on, but that is where the privileged nature of the post comes through. I say this not to attack, but simply to explain why people coming from the overall debate, coming from metafandom, etc, are taking issue with this."

If this is your view, know that I hear you and understand that. But this post is not intended to derail anything. I never even intended to get picked up by the likes of metafandom. I know there are people who have gotten things very wrong recently, and other people who have gotten angry with reason because of that. This post is about my own problems (and those of people who have commented with similar ones) taking part in and/or being triggered by any online debate due genuine issues including anxiety and mental health issues, cultural issues, and other problems. There have been comments to this post which may help people with those problems, and it seems to be helpful in general to have a place where they can be heard (I know it would have helped me), so please do not take our shared anxiety as an attack on your cause. It's not meant as such.

The Internet as a Forum for Debate

or

Living in Fear

 

　

The internet is a unique and often wonderful tool for free speech. You can saying anything you like, anywhere you like, within reason. You can hold any opinion and find people who hold it too. You can voice anonymously all the feelings your real life would never allow you to say, for fear of consequences. You are free to speak.

Or are you?

The internet is a virtual environment, this is true. You are largely protected from physical retribution within it's bounds. The internet is also largely anonymous, that is also true. You're opinions here do not usually result in your being fired, or driven from your home, or any of the other harmful discriminations possible in the physical world.

But the internet is not safe. And within it, you are not free.

I've been watching a number of internet debates over the past couple of years. I've taken part in a few of them. I have changed my opinions over the course of them, and would not agree with now what I agreed with then, in some cases. I have learned from them, in a number of very real ways. I have changed, I think, hopefully for the better, from seeing some of the opinions aired during those debates.

But most of what I've learned? The main thing I've taken from it?

Don't join in. Don't voice your own opinions, no matter how desperately you may want to. Don't fight for your side of the issue, no matter how vehemently you may disagree with what the other side is saying. Don't defend your ideas. Don't put forward your ideas.

Because doing so will have very real, very hurtful, even occasionally very dangerous consequences. And that is a fact.

Now, I need to be clear, here. Given the recent issues that have come up, given the vehement opinions on all sides. I am not talking about one group. I am not talking about the proponents of one particular idea or side. I am not talking about any side, of any issue. Race, gender, sexuality, mental health, disability, those who write about them versus those who live with them, those who support a group without being part of them ... I am talking about none of these in particular.

I am talking about all of them.

I have watched some of those debates, and they didn't look like debates. They looked like mobs. They looked like gang-wars. They looked like the virtual echoes of the goddamn sectarian violence my dad's job drops him into the remnants of. They looked like conflicts.

They felt like them too.

The internet is a free-form forum. Everyone is an individual here. Everyone is accessible here. Everyone is alone here. There are no enforcable rules for interaction, there are no spokespeople or physical limits on how many voices can make themselves heard. There are no rules. There may be customs, there may be standards of decent behaviour, but there are no police, there are no safeties, and if anyone really wants to, they can break those rules.

They can call together a group of friends and gang up on someone. They can take that person's words and cast them all over the internet. They can gather together what in the real, physical world would be called a fucking mob and point them at someone's virtual door. They can band together along vague lines of disagreement and get into an all-out conflict on someone's, anyone's doorstep.

And once they do, what the hell are your options? Run away from your virtual home? Try to fight? Hide under the virtual stairs with comments locked and hope to hell it'll go away eventually?

And it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what your opinion was in the first place. It doesn't matter what side you're on, or whether you learn your lesson from the first fucking comment. You have invited a conflict, and there's no stopping it now.

I ... okay. I have taken part in a couple of these. I have learned from a couple of these. I have had it pointed out to me where I have made mistakes in my life, directly or indirectly, and I have taken it to heart. I can see the value of a forum where people tell you that kind of shit. Where people point out what you're doing wrong.

But ... If someone takes me aside, points out that I did something wrong and that it hurt them, I feel guilty and ashamed, and try to fix it.

If five dozen people try to take me aside all at once, no matter how reasonably, I start to feel scared. I'm afraid of crowds at the best of times, and crowds who quite obviously object to something you've done are bloody scary. I still do my best to change, but I come away from it shaking for a few days.

If five dozen people get angry and upset and start yelling at me, and then at each other, to the point where things are actually violent ... I don't give a flying fuck what I did wrong, if I can even remember what I did wrong, all I care about it getting the hell away and hiding somewhere with my hands over my ears, hoping nobody hits me in the process.

If those five dozen people start spreading out, calling in reinforcements, resurrecting old arguments (even if they're connected and justifiable), forming up into sides and out-and-out brawling over whatever it was I did wrong ... I'm shutting down my computer, walking away and not bloody looking back.

The lesson learned is not 'don't do something wrong'. It's 'don't do anything that anyone, anywhere, might think is wrong or use as an excuse to fight'. And, not to put too fine a point on it, there are very few things with any meaning that can't be used to start a fight.

The lesson is to keep quiet, keep your head down, and hope they don't somehow come after you anyway. The lesson is to live in fear.

I've never actually been called out for something I personally have done that offended. I'm not sure why that is, since given the amount of my worldview that has changed over the last few years, I must have occasionally said something that hurt someone. But I have joined in, on one side or another, for one person or another. I have actually fought those fights. I have actually joined those mobs.

If there is anything about my experience online that I regret, it's that. Because I never came out of it feeling vindicated. I never came out of it feeling I stood up for myself and others and said something that needed to be said.

I came out of it feeling that I'd hurt people. I came out of it feeling that I'd just walked off a battlefield. I came out of it feeling that there were casualties on any and all sides that didn't deserve to be casualties.

I came out of it feeling sick.

The internet, with the rules and safeties it currently has in place, is not a forum for debate. It is a theater for conflict. And quite frankly, most people here aren't looking for conflict. They aren't looking to live in fear. And they aren't going to speak. Whether or not they have something worth saying, they aren't going to speak.

Speaking up for anything, for any view on any issue, in this theatre, is too fucking scary a prospect.

I don't find that laudible. I don't find the free speech of the few worthy of that cost. There is a difference between democracy and anarchy. There is a difference between free speech and mob rule. Or there fucking should be.

This was me, speaking. And this is now me, shutting the hell up and getting out of the way.


Edit, verbatim from comments:

Me: What comparison would you prefer? Even if the internet does not allow for actual physical violence, it does allow for other kinds. I have sat and watched while something I said caused members of my family to spiral into hateful arguments. These debates remind me of that. I have watched a city divide along sectarian lines where saying the wrong thing at the wrong time will get you driven out of that space, if not outright attacked. These debates remind me of that. I have watched someone by held up in front of twenty people and their character, beliefs and choices laughed at, belittled and beaten into the ground, while their self esteem and self worth crumbled. I have been that someone. These debates remind me of that.

Let me put it another way. These debates, regardless of what issues they raise and purely because of the way they are carried out, are triggering the fuck out of me. They are not 'harshing my squee' or any other such fucking thing. They are triggering mental health and self esteem issues that more than once have come this fucking close to getting me hospitalised.

Comment: Like I said, my issue with the post was the way it expressed your idea, because in trying to uphold the comparison, I don't feel like I got any of that from the post. If this were spelled out for people, you wouldn't have to bring it to comments. Conflict might be a better word to use than war, for example, because war has connotations of physical force and far more drastic consequences than you can face in a virtual setting. War is a very specific type of conflict, so the broader term would buffer your point without making readers (like myself) feel that the example has been taken too far.

Me: Since the commentor has a point, and I'm too tired to run back through the post itself to edit right now, I'm putting this here verbatim for clarification. FURTHER EDIT: 'War' has been changed to 'conflict' wherever I spotted it.

See thread from thoracopagus for details, and some genuinely helpful advice if you're having similar issues.
See also thread by shayheyred for further clarification on when and where the sentiments of the post should apply, because it is an important point.


EDIT (RE RULES): I debated about locking this post, since people I don't know are noticing it. But I won't. However, I do want to put in place some ground rules, yes?

No-one is arming up and taking sides in this space. No-one. If you want to disagree, fair enough. But do so respectfully, do NOT bring in the content of old debates or even fresh ones, do not name names or direct personal attacks. There is a reason this post was never intended as an entry to current debate, and that reason is that there are people here, myself so very much included, who have reason to be afraid of or triggered by those debates and every other one we've seen. I would ask people to respect that.

Failing that, I will start screening comments, or lock them altogether. I don't want to do that.

ANOTHER EDIT: I should probably have said this ages ago, but it didn't occur to me. Forgive me. For those of you wishing to protect your identity while commenting to this post, anonymous comments ARE active and welcomed, so long as they follow the general rules laid out for this post. Please, don't be afraid to make your voice heard.

AND AGAIN: Right. Post is open again. Though if I can take a second to remind people? NO resurrecting the specific blame-games of old arguments. There have been a few people down the post trying to point fingers and say such-and-such did this to that person during this debate. Perhaps they did. But this post is not about personal vendettas, or who was on what side when. This post is about a general trend across most debates, and the people who have suffered for it. People arming up and taking sides again, using this post as an excuse to continue those old fights, is exactly what many of us here are afraid of and triggered by, for example ME, so please try to resist the temptation. This post is in my space, it was never intended to be anywhere else, and it has rules for a reason. Thank you.

AND AGAIN AGAIN: There are a number of comments to the post that various people for various reasons may find offense. I'm sorry this is the case. However, I would ask that people do their best to be as reasonable as possible pointing out the reasons for offense, avoid making personal attacks, and that if there are already comments pointing it out, to not add in more unless there is point you wish to make that hasn't already been made. Um. One of the issues discussed here is mobbing, after all. -_-;


FINAL EDIT: I am locking comments to this post, because ... well, holding it open is beginning to cost me, due to my mental state right now, not because of anything that has been said. In fact, most people have been fabulous. *sheepish* I probably shouldn't have posted it in the first place, given the condition I'm in at the minute, but then again, this post was originally meant as a vent of frustration on leaving meta fandom. I never expected it to be the start of something new, or for it to be found (I'm still not sure how it was, by the way - I've rarely participated and never before now been a voice of note). That concern stands, by the way. I'm not in fit condition to participate right now.

Before I go, though, I want to say thank you. Thank you for listening, thank you for commenting, thank you for making this a legitimate discussion. Thank you for also helping make it a safe discussion as much as possible. Believe me, your consideration is appreciated more than you will ever know. I hope this discussion will continue. I hope this discussion will be allowed to continue, as I believe it is a valid one. And I hope that perhaps there will be more safe spaces (or safer spaces, anyway) created for this and other discussion to take place in. I find the reactions of people both to and within the rules of this post a very hopeful sign, in that regard. *optimistic*

Feel free to read both the post and the comments already made. Indeed, I hope you do, because there were many valid points raised on all sides. And too, feel free to PM me on the back of this post, if you wish. Be aware, though, that because of my state at the minute and as no reflection on what you may say, you may not be answered. *sheepish*

Thank you all again. I never expected this reaction (or any reaction, to be frank). Thank you. (Sheesh, that was a long note!)