Must be that I'm too old. But how does one gets harassed on social media? Now if someone is calling you, texting you.... I can see that as harassment. But social media???? I can easily shut down any of my social accounts. I really do not have to go online. I have actual friends I can meet face to face and be social.
What someone I do not know posts anything negative online doesn't affect me.
Say you're at a party, and having a nice time, and talking to a bunch of interesting people - some friends, some new acquaintances - but there's this one guy you don't know, who keeps screaming obscenities at you. By your logic, you could just leave the party, right? Or try to ignore the person that's yelling obscenities over the top of the conversation you're trying to have. So... what if you could just magically mute the idiot, or the words he's shouting, and continue on talking pleasantly with others. That's the sort of thing these filters are going after. Making it so
you don't have to leave the party (and all the social media sites have a vested interest in people staying at the party).
Social media is getting to be another way one interacts with other people, just as the written letter, telephone, email and text message before it (each of which went through their own periods of people saying, "well, that's not real
legitimate communication, like the
older methods are"). Yes, you can shut down your accounts and withdraw from that method of interacting with others. Why should
you have to? You seem to think phone calls and text messages are different, but you could just as easily get rid of your phone and/or computer to escape from harassment via those. Again, why should
you have to? If you follow your logic, it means we abandon all new forms of communication to the dicks who are shouting obscenities (and they're doing it, in large part, because they can do so without repercussions, and they can get a rise out of people, and it gives them a brief respite from worrying about their own insecurities).
I don't condone censorship (this isn't that - that would involve the
government controlling what you can say in public), and I'm not much for tiptoeing around every issue lest it offend someone's sensibilities, but a technological fix that takes away the fun of being a dick to strangers? How is that really a bad thing?
