Lately several analyses were done regarding the latest discussion on anonymous commenters (presumably deaf or hard of hearing) who attack other mostly deaf and hard of hearing people or the blogger him/herself over an opinionated blogpiece. People who discussed the petulent bashing and anonymous commenting like Amy Cohen Efron in her vlog appeal, the ever so seemingly obdurate blogger Surdobitch on her blogpiece "Boiling Crabs - theoretically" which links to Cy's analysis piece "Social Context and Anonymous Bashing" that links to the quintessentially happy David Eberwein's vlog piece where you can imagine him in a smoker's jacket and pipe while he lobs a few pieces of his social context and bashing theory as to why these things happen.
David's not the Deaf savior. Nor will anyone else's somber and wise words will get these people to stop attacking or bashing those who have alternative opinions they do not like. Why do I say this? Well, just look at this past Gallaudet University protest as a shining example of people running amok and going into personal attack modes along with conspiracy theories brought in by the truckload. People just live for gossipy information and rumours rather than to try and seek the truth without resorting to personal ad hominem attacks. You know who those people are, folks.
Commenters who purposely use the anonymous feature in order to specifically attack a single person are, in my view, simply cowards and/or have insecurity issues in many cases. Examples of that can be seen repeatedly here. But the bashing and anonymous posting isn't a "deaf thing." It goes on everyday over the internet by hearing people as well. Nothing unique about this but I certainly don't have any faith in the attempt to appeal to the deaf/hh blog masses to stop the anonymous posting or attacking. We know there are some people who will never change their behaviors who like to hurt others by attacking people repeatedly or use anonymous features to bash. Why? Well, it's because they are what they are in the first place.
I have always instituted a commenting policy in my Haloscan comment regarding bashing with these rules - "Observe the rules. No personal attack or foul language allowed on premise." And the reason is simple. If you cannot debate or discuss even-handedly without resorting to ad hominem or personal attacks then your comments do not belong there. Keep coming back with the same modus operandi and the person will find him or herself banned. It's better to keep an honest and forthright debate than to watch a discussion become mired in petulent and infantile bashing. These things will simply continue because human nature says that it will.
No comments:
Post a Comment