If it weren’t so serious, it would be fun to watch, such was the sport on Facebook over the summer.
We're talking about the near implosion of the Facebook page Fans of the Old Ruthin Blog and the establishment of a splinter group, Ruthin Moaners (which is probably aptly named). All in all, over the summer, the Facebook wheels seemed to be coming off. There were two factions: those who wanted a warts-and-all approach to the Fans page and those who were fed up with the negativity and sideswiping it attracted. There was claim and counter claim, possibly even some defamation. Just who was right and who had been wronged was difficult to unpick.
If you're unfamiliar with Facebook, welcome to the world where facts no longer exist. Instead, everything is just a point of view, a postmodern computerised bouillabaisse.
The Fans of the Old Ruthin Blog page has actually long been a hotbed of dissent. Sometimes, it's the ugly side of social media. At other times, you can't move around the page without tripping over posts about lost or found cats! You'd think post Cambridge Analytica that people would be dropping Facebook quicker than hot Welsh cakes. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of this in Rhuthun/Ruthin.
Matters came to a head in early June on the very day of the Top Dre festival. There came a post and picture that accused our mayor of scrawling a rather unpleasant four letter word on an overdue parked car that was causing a blockage. The administrator immediately removed the comment and picture. The mayor later brushed it off as a joke.
Some felt uncomfortable following this removal and, indeed, that of other comments earlier in the summer. They questioned the page administrators in cleansing comments all too quickly. But most of the Fans closed ranks and supported the mayor.
Very ironically, the Fans have long been mean to those who actually do enforce car parking.
Whatever your point of view, the ensuing arguments on Facebook regarding the major say more about us as residents than about the mayor and his actions. We've become a vindictive society. Facebook is our worst selves.
In fact, groups such as the Fans are bigger than all of us, because it *is* all of us (obviously not me). Maybe technology can change the world but in this case perhaps its not always for the best. It's almost an organism in its own right. The internet certainly is no longer a plaything as I remember it in the early 1990s when it was for geeks and nerds only and mention of it on any serious current affairs TV or radio problem would be greeted by chuckles and sniggers. Who's laughing now?
In short, the Fans page reflects who we’ve become. This is our worst selves.
Tainted its reputation? I’m not sure it ever had the reputation its administrator accorded it.
My father was a shopkeeper and he once told me that in business you didn't want to upset any customers, actual or potentiality. He also volunteered tirelessly for a political party and he very much had his views but he wisely kept them to himself. On contentious issues, it was simply best to say nothing.
As for Ruthin Moaners, this just plays into the hands of those people who live outside our town and who consider Rhuthun to be full of them and, yes, there are those who think we do nothoing but moan. Probably Facebook hasn’t helped.
We're talking about the near implosion of the Facebook page Fans of the Old Ruthin Blog and the establishment of a splinter group, Ruthin Moaners (which is probably aptly named). All in all, over the summer, the Facebook wheels seemed to be coming off. There were two factions: those who wanted a warts-and-all approach to the Fans page and those who were fed up with the negativity and sideswiping it attracted. There was claim and counter claim, possibly even some defamation. Just who was right and who had been wronged was difficult to unpick.
The Fans of the Old Ruthin Blog page has actually long been a hotbed of dissent. Sometimes, it's the ugly side of social media. At other times, you can't move around the page without tripping over posts about lost or found cats! You'd think post Cambridge Analytica that people would be dropping Facebook quicker than hot Welsh cakes. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of this in Rhuthun/Ruthin.
Some felt uncomfortable following this removal and, indeed, that of other comments earlier in the summer. They questioned the page administrators in cleansing comments all too quickly. But most of the Fans closed ranks and supported the mayor.
Very ironically, the Fans have long been mean to those who actually do enforce car parking.
Whatever your point of view, the ensuing arguments on Facebook regarding the major say more about us as residents than about the mayor and his actions. We've become a vindictive society. Facebook is our worst selves.
In fact, groups such as the Fans are bigger than all of us, because it *is* all of us (obviously not me). Maybe technology can change the world but in this case perhaps its not always for the best. It's almost an organism in its own right. The internet certainly is no longer a plaything as I remember it in the early 1990s when it was for geeks and nerds only and mention of it on any serious current affairs TV or radio problem would be greeted by chuckles and sniggers. Who's laughing now?
In short, the Fans page reflects who we’ve become. This is our worst selves.
Tainted its reputation? I’m not sure it ever had the reputation its administrator accorded it.
How Facebook started. It was innocuous enough in 2005
My father was a shopkeeper and he once told me that in business you didn't want to upset any customers, actual or potentiality. He also volunteered tirelessly for a political party and he very much had his views but he wisely kept them to himself. On contentious issues, it was simply best to say nothing.
As for Ruthin Moaners, this just plays into the hands of those people who live outside our town and who consider Rhuthun to be full of them and, yes, there are those who think we do nothoing but moan. Probably Facebook hasn’t helped.