Is the proverbial saying, “Silence is Golden”, often used in circumstances where it is thought that saying nothing is preferable to speaking, still relevant in this time of Social Media?
The ability to be anonymous online or in easily locating groups that share your views of the world, no matter how deviant or perverted, is that old proverbial saying working to our benefit or is it time to change it to Your Silence is Golden to me?
We’ve often heard of social media users having to delete their twitter or instagram accounts due to the overwhelming amount of hate messages they received in response to a post of theirs. The latest celebrity to do this is Ed Sheeran who purportedly deleted his twitter account due to the negative comments he received for his cameo on the 1st episode of season 7 of Game of Thrones.
This phenomenen of receiving many negative reaction, abusive posts and threatening comments in response to something you have posted is not only reserved for celebrities and other famous people. Anyone with a social media account, that posts a picture, a comment, a thought or even a personal belief, open themselves up to this potential wave of insults.
Some recent examples in Malaysia and outside were
- SPM Student who gets cyber bullied for her images wearing make up
- Malaysian Gymnast criticised for attire
- Property Brothers, Jonathan Scott, calls out fans over hate posts
Generally termed as Cyber Bullying, the way we react to this situation is the same as when we deal with physical bullying.
To not do anything, to ignore it, to hope that it will be over and to be silent.
