Rome, and
the year is 1633. An unwell, frail, elderly man nearly 70 years old is dragged
into a darkened room lit by flickering candle light.
The guards
hurl the old man to the ground. Overlooking this aggression is a panel of jurors,
the Roman Inquisition, working on behalf of the Catholic Church. The old man is
Galileo, and he’s on trial for heresy.
For Galileo
had written a works entitled ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems’ which spoke at length
about the two competing theories relating to the Earth and Sun’s relative
movements in space. The official stance of the Catholic Church was that the Sun
revolved around the Earth [which was the central body of the solar system].
Galileo was suspected of supporting the rival heliocentric position – that the
Earth orbited the Sun.
The trial didn’t go too well for Galileo.
On being found guilty of promoting the idea that the Sun was the solar
system’s central body and taking the heretical position against the Church, the
old man sighed and looked upwards, stamped his foot on the ground and uttered,
dejectedly, ‘and yet it moves’.
Galileo, the near 70 year old scientist was then dragged back to his
cell to face a gruesome death by torture. It was only after a doctor
interjected, late in the hour, that Galileo was far too old and ill to be
tortured to death was the scientist given the ‘lighter’ sentence of life
imprisonment where he would be forced to read the Psalms of Confession section
of the Bible, every week, until the end of time, or death – whichever came
first.
Within ten years Galileo died whilst under house arrest, after spending
his last few years a blind man whose name had been dragged through the mud.
So much for scientific thought.
History is littered with incidents like Galileo’s fall from prominence.
Many of these tragedies we know about, but there’s also many we don’t
know about because historical records have been lost to us through war, fire,
flooding or even because the enemies of the individual didn’t want us to find
out.
Throughout time immemorial has the individual with the unorthodox
opinion been harassed, maltreated and often…killed…by the majority, by the mob.
There’s incidents stretching back from Ancient Greece all the way to our modern
day. Perhaps it’s part of our DNA as a people.
Worryingly however, where once we looked back upon history and
haughtily tutted, dismissing our ancestors as a bunch of reactionary idiots…the
issue has become hugely relevant in our modern world. We’re becoming almost as
bad. All of a sudden we now have this notion of ‘trolling’ which has been
appropriated by the media and is currently spiralling out of control.
I’m a guy in my twenties, the rise of social media has coincided with
my journey from teenager to adult. Myspace rose to prominence during my late teens,
Twitter emerged as a powerhouse in my early twenties. I feel confident in
discussing the issue. Let’s be frank, there are trolls out there. To deny the
problem would be folly. There are strange, slightly autistic, chubby types who
sit in their parents’ basement and relentlessly post death threats to
celebrities, or ‘invade’ Facebook groups dedicated to dead children and post
horrendously offensive, graphic content.
These people are mentally ill. They’re somewhere on the spectrum.
There’s an argument to suggest that they themselves are victims of sorts, and
their vile online behaviour is the manifestation of a failed life of misery,
where the troll lashes out at the world in order to alleviate their own inner
problems and inadequacies.
But the scary thing is……the media have now picked up the term, and the
media tends to be full of people from an older generation who don’t truly
understand social media or the internet and since finding out about
‘trolling’…. they’re applying the term to absolutely everybody.
Any opinion uttered online that contradicts the common thought is now slammed
as trolling.
Had Twitter existed in 1633, you can absolutely guarantee that Galileo
would have been dismissed and derided as a troll. Of this I have no doubt. For
questioning the popular mind-set he would have been portrayed as an online
sicko, as a member of the dregs of society. The ‘trolling’ criticism would have
been hurled at him to not only besmirch his name, but censor him. You can see the headlines in the press…’Sick
Troll Blasts Bible with Crankpot Sun Theory’. Galileo would have been
relegated from a human to some inhuman ‘troll’ that lurks in the shadows intent
on upsetting people. An entity beyond
reason.
In recent weeks the Madeline McCann incident has risen to the surface
in regards to the trolling phenomenon.
Everybody knows the narrative. Madeline disappeared from a holiday home
in Portugal while the parents were nearby socialising with friends at a
restaurant.
Many people in society remain irritated by this case, and are utterly
dismayed and incredulous that parents would leave a three year old unattended
for a period of time [no matter how many times the children were checked upon].
Furthermore the McCanns always seemed to lack charisma in their numerous
television interviews, and when they released a book about the controversy and
took on almost celebrity status, many mothers around the nation became pretty…irked.
When Brenda Leyland, a 63 year-old, mother of two, used her Twitter
account to criticise the conduct of the McCanns during and after the
disappearance incident it wasn’t mindless trolling for giggles, but merely an
emotional mother giving a rather forthright and passionate opinion on the
matter [one which went against the view espoused throughout the media].
The media caught wind of Brenda’s online criticisms and utterly destroyed
the woman.
They published her photos across the national newspapers, they
published her whereabouts, ruined her life, they branded her ‘The McCann
Troll’, snatching away her status as a human being, relegating her into some
cartoonish villain.
Sky News set camp up outside her front door, pointed cameras at the
household and accosted Brenda whenever she left the house.
She was living under siege.
As the sun set, and the sky darkened to night, Brenda fled her home,
gathered up what meagre possessions she could carry and attempted to escape the
attention of the cameras and the ravenous media.
24 hours later, Brenda Leyland, the middle class, 63 year old mother of
two was found dead on a bed in a Leicestershire hotel room.
This wasn’t the chubby, mentally ill, oddball in their parents’
basement posting crude rape jokes about dead people for a cheap laugh…..this
was just an average mother with a seemingly passionate fixation about the
welfare of children and happened to think the McCanns had been negligent.
Her mistake was to voice this opinion.
The night Brenda’s lifeless body, or, as the media put it, ‘the McCann
Troll’s lifeless body was carried out of the Leicestershire hotel room her son
Ben typed on Facebook:
“I love you mum and I will miss you
forever.”
She had aired
a controversial opinion online, one which opposed the prevailing mind-set and
she had paid the penalty.
Suzanne
Moore in The Guardian reacted in predictable fashion [remember the older
generation of journalists tend to misuse internet terminology] by
conflating Brenda Leyland in with all other mad trolls, as attention seekers,
or just insane or sick.
The important separation of somebody merely challenging
the orthodox view and giving an opinion with somebody launching a campaign of
mindless hate was just ignored. ‘All these trolls are the same’ was the inference,
and that all online criticism which some people
find offensive should be outlawed.
She snapped about
these twitter trolls writing stuff that they wouldn’t say in real life. About a
people who thrive through anonymity.
But surely,
the reason people like Brenda Leyland felt the need to criticise through the
internet was because if she voiced her views in public she might have been met
with violence, verbal abuse and social ostracism – surely that is a greater
criticism of an intolerant society? Of a culture which seeks to silence
diversity of opinion?
When we see
old Galileo locked in his house and forced to read the Bible every day, or
Brenda Leyland dead in a hotel room, is there any wonder people seek anonymity
when delivering alternative views? It’s far safer that way.
As I write
this article the main headline on Sky News, in pure Brass Eye fashion, is that
online trolls are to be handed two year PRISON sentences.
This of course throws
up all sorts of questions...
How do you
define trolling?
Is it merely
the causing of offence?
If so, how
do you measure offence?
What’s wrong
with being offended?
Is trolling
exclusively the weirdo who posts about shagging murder victims on Facebook? Or
is it an elderly mother that makes controversial observations about current
affairs?
Or if you’re
Suzanne Moore, do you just lock them all up and swallow the key?
It doesn’t
take a mad conspiracy theorist sitting in a cupboard with a frying pan on his
head to see the easy jump from arresting trolls who post personal insults to
celebrities, to the imprisonment of trolls who question government policy, or
wars, or immigration policy, or well….anything that the powers that be deem to
be offensive.
There has to
be a line drawn in the sand, we’re mostly sensible adults, we should be able to
discern the difference between posting death threats to actors and offering a
criticism about a current affairs issue.
The
political correctness of ‘causing offence’ started off as a just concept and
aimed to protect minority groups, reduce violence and discrimination, but
somewhere along the line it has transmuted into an uncontrollable beast that is
increasingly impinging on all areas of public life.
Stephen Fry has a fantastic
quote about the sheer ridiculousness of the notion of ‘offence’:
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm
rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually
nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it
has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by
that.' Well, so fucking what."
- -
Stephen Fry
Anybody with an ounce of personality will
become a troll. It now seems inevitable.
Let’s
just hope there’s enough seats under the bridge for all us trolls, otherwise I’ll
get a bit arsey and I might say something offensive at the goats passing
overhead.
Who
knows? Maybe Galileo can lend me his Bible and calm me down.
The beardy twat.
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