The eve of December 6 is upon us. For those old enough to remember, on that day 20 years ago, a man walked into Montreal's École Polytechnique and erased 14 lives with his semiautomatic rifle before turning it on himself.
We can expect the usual round of memorial services and articles about the incident and its legacy, as that is the case every year.
But there's also something else we can expect if we're regular message board readers. Every media outlet has message boards for people to express their opinions. It's likely that the rounds of stories about Dec. 6 will have their share of people contribute such opinions. Freedom of speech and you can even conceal, depending on the policy of the media outlet in question, your identity under a pseudonym. Want to blow the whistle on a bad employer or an abusive partner? Welcome to the Internet, the world where the bar of TV's "Cheers," nobody knows your name.
In an ideal world, the Internet commons of opinion give-and-take would hearken back to the days of the ancient Greeks and their forums, where being erudite (or "learned" in non-Rex-Murphy speak) was valued and debate was an art form.
Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world.
Online message boards are probably the best indicator that we're not going in the right direction. For example, we bet that next week's coverage of stories relating to the Montreal Massacre will result not in a rash of thoughtful debate on message boards, but more along the lines of "well maybe those bitches got what they deserved, taking jobs away from men" from some poster called "mightyweasel" or something like that. If you want more examples of what bullies are doing on the Internet, look at a recent CBC story on 28-year-old Amanda Lindhout, the Alberta journalist released after 16 months as a hostage in Somalia. She had been hired by a French media outlet to do stories there; yet she ended up being starved, beaten and tortured for most of that time.
What are message posters saying? Well, some praised the young woman for her strength. But "Chad198125" could only say "she's hot!" and others berated her for not going to Somalia in the first place. Still others ranted against Muslims in general, a totally non-valid statement to make. Yet others said that as a woman she should have known better. Welcome to "blame the victim" mentality, people.
Message boards are becoming crueler. One American paper's website featured a story about an unfortunate man who had to be cut out of his chair after he died because he was more than 800 pounds. Instead of offering compassion for a family and for someone whose metabolism went out of whack, many took the other approach. "The world is better off without pigs like that." In response to a person who said she could relate to someone with such a disability because she had severely disabled twin daughters, another said "too bad about your kids but you could have had ultrasound to see their disability, and then you should have aborted them so they wouldn't be a drain to society."
Nice comment, Miss I Went To the Eugenics School Run By Neo-Nazis.
In this province, one moderately overweight woman only discovered she was pregnant when she went to a hospital and was delivered of a healthy boy. What were the messages saying? Congratulations on the new mom? Not hardly. According to them, she was a stupid fat cow.
How can you take comments seriously from people who use fake names to make them? The rule of thumb should be, if you would not say the same thing to the subject in person, then don't say it at all.
In light of pedophile scandals, it's easy to take potshots, especially when you don't use your real name. Maybe it's because, statistically speaking, you're a child molester yourself. If you have 400 messages on that subject and 90 per cent of them are negative, chances are that at least some of those messages come from people who you wouldn't want to babysit your kids.
In light of the goal of Montreal Massacre activists, let's make a step to reduce violence and stop bullying.
Taking back the Internet would be a good first step.
The Advertiser
.jpg)
.jpg)
