I am half way through reading Ronson's latest book "You have been publicly shamed" - I can recommend it a thought provoking read.

It raises the question of whether social media is transgressing society back several generations to the days of public floggings/executions.

Trial/punishment by social media does appear to be far more punitive that the punishments handed out by the courts.

It explores some cases where minor slips on twitter or other forms of social media have wrecked people's lives.

I wonder if people wouldn't be so brazen in their criticism if they were unable to hide behind the made up twitter/message name?

The beauty of social media is there is no requirement to get involved.

To that end if people really have nothing better to do than have a go at others then IMO they have a problem.

If you don't use it, read it, then you have nothing to be concerned about and if your friends/ colleagues see something and start chirruping then I would wonder about them.

FWIW you can live a life without social media, we have for millennia so just ignore it.

I can't stand Ronson - mostly because of his prose style. Although I seem to like movies based on his work.

He is an acquired taste - very different from the American style we seem to be bombarded with.

He makes some interesting points that the balance of retribution has shifted to large numbers of anonymous posters who post judgement on very superficial levels with little interest other than venting their bias spleen.

A quote from the book
"On Twitter we make our decisions about who deserves obliteration. We form our own consensus, and we aren't influenced by the criminal justice system or by the media. This makes us formidable"

IMO Ian Herbert of the Independent wrote an utterly appalling article giving Graeme Souness a full body massage while throwing jibes at Jose Mourinho. It was over Souness calling CFC a disgrace over their antics when they went out to PSG. Jose Mourinho said that Souness and Carragher should remember what they got up to on the pitch and called out Souness as being a fantastic player but as a coach not so much.

That, according to Herbert, was a toxic and cowardly attack.

This riled me big time so I have spent a few days constantly tweeting to Herbert trying to get him to answer why Souness has the right to slag off CFC but JM doesn't have the right of reply. I've also left some long criticisms

Amy Lawrence of the Guardian praised that article as terrific. I tweeted to her asking he to please educate me why the article was terrific as IMO it's trash. She couldn't really offer any explanation and was offended at my suggestion that it was because of her dislike for JM (she is an Arsenal fan). It was a quick, polite exchange but it was obvious it wasn't going anywhere so I thinked her for the reply and left.

I did call Herbert out as a coward many times as he wouldn't back up his article. I was going to continue to bombard him with messages but TBH it was peeing me off. I eventually emailed Pat Nevin who is available on the CFC website and asked him what his impression of the article was. He told me not to bother with either Herbert or the Indie as they weren't worth bothering with. I emailed him back about the biased journalism damaging CFC in a big way and we had a present exchange IMO. He's a CFC legend and it was good to communicate with him.

So I stopped tweeting to Herbert.

A couple of weeks ago I had an incident I'm not really pleased about. My life in general is in the toilet. I kind of feel that twitter has been dragging me into depression.

Twitter has some redeeming features, but I still feel it's a massive force for bad. I think I'm quite good on twitter but I'm pretty sure it's terrible for me so I'm planning on bailing.

I like twitter but I think its original purpose - informing people of what individuals were unto has moved significantly into an arena for personal abuse - sadly the discussion part appears to have gone by the way side - possibly because the number of characters available for a post is limiting.

People do seem to use twitter in a much more destructive way than say discussion boards like this

As a news gathering source it's exceptionally good. It's part of the click-bait media culture and I suspect that a great deal of articles that would have never been read before twitter get read now. That is a blessing and a curse though because if a person has a strong personal feeling on a subject then they will have quick access to new articles which normally they'd never have seen.

The woman who killed herself after Sky News doorstepped her and outed her as a troll. I read through most of her tweets and I couldn't see anything particularly offensive in what she wrote. She is of the opinion that they played a part in their daughters death and she liked to discuss it. There may have been mental health issues already there but my opinion is that Sky News basically bullied her to death. Doorstepping corrupt MPs or serious criminals is one thing, if she was guilty of a crime then the police should have been the ones interviewing her. But a Sky TV camera turning up and ambushing her was ridiculous. Ordinary people simply aren't prepared for instant fame, especially of the negative kind like that.

I've only skimmed through so don't even know what he's ranting about, but Paul Gascoigne seems to be using twitter to get himself sectioned. It's probably easier and quicker than going through the mental health system and far less destructive than running down the street naked with a knife. https://twitter.com/gazza8gascoigne

I've only skimmed through so don't even know what he's ranting about, but Paul Gascoigne seems to be using twitter to get himself sectioned. It's probably easier and quicker than going through the mental health system and far less destructive than running down the street naked with a knife. https://twitter.com/gazza8gascoigne

Just starting to read Gazza's tweets. The press know he has massive mental health problems. They know that following him and reporting on his situation will cause him massive mental stress and exacerbate his problems. They don't care and they still do it. They are utter scum. I'm not going to start ranting about how much I hate all of the people involved in the decision to even cover Gascoigne. The only thing they should be doing with him is giving him the space to hopefully recover.

Having the right to reply doesn't always mean you should. Right or wrong, you're fighting battles that you can never win, and will never make any difference. Just as on here, no-one is ever going to change their minds.

If you stop enjoying the debate/banter, step back. If it's bothering you, walk away. I get involved in some debates in here that get a bit daft but not one of them has ever bothered me and once I'm offline it's forgotten.


Having just seen your twitter, you absolutely, definitely need to quit. Or at least step back. Far too much in general and far too much emotional investment. That aside, how do you find the time?!

I know a couple of people who've quit social media for similar reasons, including the onset of depression. What they see, what they perceive, what they engage in, how deeply they become emotionally involved and how they apply all of that to their own lives can be damaging. The fact you've mention depression rings alarm bells, and it seems to me you already know this.

I've seen similar on facebook. People gratuitously promoting their "perfect" and endlessly exciting lives; their wonderful families...blah blah blah...when it's simply not true. A few friends I know with difficult lives have let this affect them day after day to the point of depression until it was pointed out that amongst those "perfect" lives, there are the failed and failing marriages, the horribly uncontrollable brattish kids, the dead-end jobs, the debt and no end of life's other crap that never gets mentioned - unless people want attention. The whole thing is a false front, so don't engage it.

Social media has its benefits, but it also exposes you to the lowest denominator and the utter b*llshit that innumerable numbskulls sling to satisfy themselves. Get sucked in and before you know it you're one of them and it's hard to walk away, but that's what you need to do. You'll never win. Like all things, moderation is best.

I post on here, a little on facebook and very occasionally on twitter. That's enough. I enjoy the banter on here and see it for what it is. And I never, ever let social media bother me.