Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Dealing with online bigotry

Here's the final part of my little series on online bigotry. In this video I talk about ways to deal with it when you're on the receiving end of bigotry.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rAviVXFBw94

To me, the single most important thing to remember when you're faced with these morons is that it's all about you. Don't waste time worrying about changing the hateful attitude of bigots - you can't change them and it isn't worth the time and effort you'd waste trying. Decide what works for you and go with that.

If you want to launch into them (like, ummmm... me) then go for it. If you want to ignore them, then do that. If you want to delete their comments and block them from making further comments that's your right. Don't listen to any bullshit about "free speech" or how you have to "debate" with them if you disagree with them.

If you take the trouble to create a blog, a website, a forum, a YouTube channel, you have the right to define how that works. If these worthless, hopeless, gutless losers don't like what you do, they can fuck off and do something of their own.

I'm not in favour of developing "codes of conduct" or anything similar. I think they're impossible to enforce in practice and more than a little lame conceptually. If people don't understand how to act like a decent human being then don't waste your time on them.

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