Reports today that the Premier League, English Football League and Women's Super League clubs, and other football organisations, will join in a four-day boycott of social media platforms in an effort to combat abuse and discrimination.
Four days. That'll scare them!
After four days they'll all go back to incessant tweeting about their boring lives (as do we all @usedtobecroque1), because they're hooked on celebrity and adulation.
Virtue signalling.
I'm not a great user of social media. I share my blog posts with my twitter account and I tweet about my video game successes from time to time. It's a low key plan to drive readers to my blog. I find both blogging and tweeting liberating: they allow me to express my life and my interests in a way which would otherwise be internal, talking to myself. When I tweet a screenshot of my latest video game win, I do so because that is part of who I am and it is one of the things I do in my rich and diverse life. If I ever feel down because one day seems much the same as the next (as I guess everyone feels from time to time), blogging and tweeting allows me to see that's not true.
It's obvious that social media are vehicles for horrendous abuse; I'm not blind to that. But the problem as I see it is not social media but people. It's people who abuse. Over the years, decades and centuries hopefully humankind will develop into a tolerant, kind and collective species. For the moment, we are what we are and there are people with ugly mouths and attitudes who exploit the freedom of social media for short term selfish gain.
But don't forget the positives. After the debacle of the European Super League this week, when some of the richest football clubs in Europe sought to make themselves richer, and the backlash from fans and players forced the clubs to re-think, a football agent said "had this stunt been pulled 20 years ago, the players would not have had a voice ... their voice comes from social media."
Ultimately, people, you have choices. If people were to abuse me on Twitter or in blog comments, I can choose to ignore the abuse - or to stop tweeting or blogging. I have the power.
If you want to make a stand against abuse - rather than against social media companies - don't do it for four measly days. Leave social media for good.
That's what Thierry Henry did.
Good advice. But I have a dream that one day, every year, we could have a totally football free month when all media, social or otherwise would no mention it at all. The resultant space would be used to cover all those interests that never get a mention but are pursued by thousands.
ReplyDeleteI know you’d hate that.