I will (un) follow - Social Media - Censorship, Offence and Shock

Im a lover of Social Media. It's power is immense. Recently I have helped source a printer for a charity event and solved a friends technical problems for a presentation - just through tweeting a friend.

I Tweet and I blog. I also use Facebook, Yammer and Linked In.

I find them incredibly useful in my work life as well as being very informative and entertaining in my private life. Recently though events have made me question how I use them and the appropriateness of my use.

The Chairman of the Bolton, Bury and District Football League (BBDFL), Warren Barlow, recently received a 5 month suspension from office, imposed by the Lancashire FA for inappropriate Tweeting. I don't know enough about the case to comment here, suffice to say that Warren is incredibly passionate about grassroots football and can often find himself in the middle of emotive arguments. However he was suspended for passing a personal comment in an official position.

A colleague of mine recently Direct Messaged (DMd) me on Twitter informing me of a BBC parody account that I may find funny and subsequently choose to follow. They wouldn't tweet me as they felt it was too rude. I looked at the parody account, followed and instantly retweeted. The retweet contained 3 swear words - 2 fucks and a bastard. I was happy to retweet but my colleague wasn't.

So what rules do you use when you are considering blogging, tweeting or posting? What is acceptable and what isn't.

The rule of thumb that I use is "Would I say what I say in an unfamiliar city centre pub?

I'm quite happy to talk football with anyone, no matter where I am, although I admit I'm less likely to be received warmly talking about Latics in Burnley or trying to convince a Rangers fan that Henrik Larsson is the greatest Celtic number 7 - even better than King Kenny!

I'm also quite happy to talk endlessly about music - although I'm not well up on certain genres like Dance, Reggae or Rap.

I can talk politics especially Social and Housing policy and indeed waffle on about virtually any subject as good as the next man or woman. I'm likely to use the word fuck quite a lot, I'm also likely to refer to some people as bastards and other mildly offensive swear words. I am not racist or homophobic and am likely to positively challenge anyone that is.

So that's the rule I use. If I offend you via my Social Media then I would probably offend you in the pub.

Other people often have different standards. I read with interest the conditions attached to Greg Hoffmans iPhone that he got from his parents for Christmas http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255285/Janelle-Hofmann-Mom-makes-son-13-sign-18-terms-conditions-giving-iPhone.html in short his mum, Janelle, made him sign a 20 point agreement before he could use the phone. Condition 9 is "Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself."

So everyone views what is acceptable slightly differently. Mrs Hoffman, my colleague, Warren Barlow and I and probably the millions of people using Social Media at this very moment will all use a different rule of thumb to censor ourselves effectively.

The easy ones to rule out are the illegal comments racist, homophobic, threats to kill etc.. if you made those comments in a pub or in front of your friends parents then you are likely to be assaulted, arrested or both and would probably deserve it.

The rest its fair to say, is down to our audience.

So what do we do though if someone says something that offends us? There are 2 options I suppose 

1. We either challenge the comment and put our view across; or
2. We ignore it, possibly tutting like Skippy the Kangaroo, and move on to the next comment. In the pub analogy we might move seats or even drink up and move on.

On Social Media we can choose to unfollow or unfriend someone but, because we are British, we feel we might upset the feelings of the person we are unfriending or unfollowing.

So if Im in a pub and Im spouting off and I offend you - Im sorry but you either need to move seats or drink up and move onto another pub.

If I offend you via Social Media then unfriend me or unfollow me - I wont be upset

Waits for loads of unfriending and unfollowing........