Thoughts On #ReclaimTheInternet

Allow me to share something with you.



Recently an incident occurred on my Twitter. It was during the #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou tag and I was conversing with some of my followers about the tag. During the course of the conversation I sent a reply to someone that said something along the lines of "Hashtags are mostly hangwringing and pointless bullshit" Later on the same day a woman replied to this tweet and indicated to me that she thought what I had said was abusive and harmful to her as a victim of non-violent domestic abuse. I disagreed and we got into a somewhat heated exchange. In her mind me saying that most hashtags are "...pointless bullshit" was gaslighting her and other victims, making them afraid to tell their stories and causing them mental harm. In my mind the tweet was an expression of an opinion, not even directly connected to the hashtag under discussion but my general thoughts on hashtags as a whole, and it was not even directed at her or anyone other than the person named in the reply.



So now we get to Reclaim The Internet, a hashtag and website that (according to the website http://www.reclaimtheinternet.com/about) "...is a broad based campaign for action to challenge abuse online." The campaign seems incredibly skewed in favour of tackling online abuse/threats/harassment aimed at women, using the Reclaim The Night movement as a template. I have been critical of this campaign, both because of its gender bias and because it doesn't seem to contain any real practical solutions to the problems that it highlights. "The internet must provide a voice for the voiceless..." What does that even mean in practical terms? Unless you live in a country where speech on the internet is restricted (which Reclaim The Internet does not address) then anyone is free to speak on the internet. However, the internet is a public forum and if you express an opinion then you can fully expect others to come along and challenge that opinion. That is not silencing, that is discourse. Free Speech is more than just being able to speak, it is being able to EXPRESS.



Reclaim The Internet asks for suggestions on how else the law can be utilised to halt online abuse. Threats are already illegal and can be categorised, someone saying "I will..." "I'm going to..." or "I want to..." doesn't leave much room for interpretation. However in terms of abuse? Well, that is a matter of perspective. The woman in the example above? She fully believed that what I had said was abusive and harmful to her, that was her perspective. My perspective was that I disagreed, the reply though public was a general opinion and not aimed specifically at her. I was called an abuser, who among the Reclaim The Internet morality police would judge whether that characterisation was true or not? If someone says they were abused online, does that mean they were or merely that they believe they were? Is someone feeling that they were abused enough to label someone else an abuser? Would they have me arrested for having hurt this woman's feelings? For having made her feel that I had harmed her? I am an ordinary person, I have a job, I am married, I have children, am I to be labelled an internet troll and potentially given a criminal record because I expressed an opinion that someone else felt was abusive to them?



Those that support Reclaim The Internet say that if you are not an abuser then you have nothing to fear. Under UK law there are processes in place to protect our freedoms and privacy, the police can't just turn up and search your house on the premise of "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear" and that is how it should be. Those systems exist to protect us from abuses of power and it MUST be the same online. Online accusations can ruin lives, lose people their jobs, their reputations, potentially put lives in danger. The accusation alone should not be enough to have a person labelled an abuser. Now of course I don't condone threats or viciousness, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone that does. Therefore it shoudn't really need to be said but taken as a given until proven otherwise or it is meaningless virtue signalling. I believe that that is all that Reclaim The Internet really is, MPs using a hot online issue for their own political purposes and a whole lot of virtue signalling.



One more thing, if you read this and believe that I am an internet abuser based on what I have said? Then you had better be sure that anything that you have posted on social media can not be in any way misinterpreted, or else you might find yourself at the mercy of the very same people that you gave the power of the internet morality police to.



Tread carefully







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