Cameron vs Facebook
July 15, 2010 5 Comments
I’ve commented recently on the sick and absurd dedications to Raoul Moat that have appeared on Facebook and elsewhere.
Cameron was asked about these tributes in PMQs yesterday. He pledged to have words with Facebook about it. They told him to take a running jump.
Eminent Tellygiraffe commentator Ed West has posted on the matter:
Now, as much as I’ve already expressed my despair at the mongiferous outpourings of sympathy and support for Moat, I do not support any effort to shutdown or otherwise censor, or ban, these sort of pages.
Apparently, Voltaire never actually said “I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This disappoints me, but the sentiment is no less fundamentally sound for it.
AJ
About Al Jahom
Schadenfreude lies at the root of this I suspect. There are of course illiterate, uneducated fools who truly believe Mr Moat is a legend but their numbers are few.
The FB page will no doubt swell in size now Dave is involved because it has just become a Mecca for Trolls.
A brief search of FB reveals there are groups proclaiming soldiers are aot heroes and the killers of James Bulger are misunderstood.
These groups exist for one reason and one reason only… To invoke an emotive response. Dave really should know better. Feeding Trolls does not dissuade them.
I agree. The best way to deal with this would have been to ignore it, not to bring it up in parliament of all places.
I don’t like Facebook at the best of time so I just dont bother with it. If all them silly cuuuuunts want to get together and praise that monster then so be it.
I wish Facebook had stuck to the same principal with that stupid child safety button nonesense.
Perhaps a question which might be asked is whether F/B would have taken down the page had a Muslim/Jew been the subject.
very good point…
The real trolls in this are the media, of course… that is all that they are these days.
Cameron is supposed to be an experienced PR man, so I don’t quite know what he hopes to achieve by focussing on this – unless of course he wants to distract attention from delivering some bad (economic) news… in which case, perhaps he’ll get into the habit of expressing disgust at every opportunity presented by some trollpaper tittle-tattle whilst his dirty dozen shovels the shit on us and calls it compost.