If you can’t say something nice should you just STFU?

Posted in Blog Entries:, Social Media on June 7th, 2010

By Craig

Cracking post and comments over at Tartan Cat (lovely looking site too) about speaking online. The gist seems to be that if you can’t say something nice, then you really shouldn’t say anything.

Bollocks.

Netiquette and having an online opinion

Now, there’s the ongoing debate over netiquette. As I’ve said in a few talks, I find it tragically hilarious that more people seemed to get upset with Nestle’s approach to people on Facebook (they said they would delete material they didn’t like) than the actual topic of the day, which was the slaughter of animals and a Greenpeace campaign.

Netiquette is good. People should have a decent grown-up/professional tone, especially if talking about businesses (you can be more loose in forums and chatrooms where you already known though), but being polite doesn’t mean you have to slavishly agree with everything or be non-critical.

For most people, criticism is what we learn from. No-one likes it, but it’s a very necessary tool – it’s part of conversation, of having and holding an opinion. You need your opinions challenged for them to be strengthened or rejected. Otherwise we would still be sitting thinking the Earth was flat and The Sun went around us. Challenging opinions improves us and stops us all being little narcisstic gits.

“But what if you put an opinion that others slam you for and everyone comes at you for?”

Well, defend your opinion. Or revise your opinion. That’s how we grow. There’s far too much me-ism online where people only read or post in response to things they agree with.

There’s also another issue: everything is technically offensive to someone. What may seem harmless to you, may be upsetting to me and vice versa. So who defines ‘harmful’?

(Note: the one thing that obviously is wrong is proper cyber-bullying, which is normally in the realm of teens and idiots.)

Michelle Rodger

Agreed, Craig.

I love words. I love communication. I believe that every word should count, otherwise why would you utter it? If you mean to hurt someone, then you should absolutely STFU. If your opinions are reasoned and the criticism constructive then you should post without question.

It’s really down to conscience. If you can look at yourself in the mirror every day and know that you haven’t deliberately hurt someone’s, feelings or dissed their idea or crapped on their ambition, for selfish reasons, then that’s a good thing.

Otherwise …
Iain Hepburn

But the danger with communication, and especially social media, Michelle, is that often people take something as an attack when it’s constructive criticism or observation.

Look at the Stephen Fry nonsense last year – bloke says on Twitter he thinks Fry can occasionally be a bit dull (fair comment). Fry has bipolar moment and throws toys out pram. Bloke has to change email address etc after being bombarded with abuse from Twitterati. Fry then apologises for overreacting.

Who’s at fault there?

Comments which appear innocuous or made as a flip remark might strike a raw nerve where it wasn’t expected to. I’ve been on both sides of that. It’s the danger of communicating behind a screen – the personality behind it doesn’t come through, so someone thinking they’re being funny or displaying personality just becomes offensive.

But as Craig says, who defines ‘harmful’? If we spend our entire lives trying not to challenge ideas or question things in case it offends anyone, the world stagnates into a dull status quo.
http://www.craig-mcgill.com Craig

Yes, I agree
http://darciecondie.com/2010/07/21/tweet-sweet-twitter-best-practice/ Tweet sweet: Twitter best practice « Interestingness

[...] join in; to join in to fit in. Then, and I believe this has been mentioned before by Craig McGill (If you can’t say something nice…), if someone decides to go against the group and publicly announce this, they are shunned and of [...]