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A simple request for dialog, not authoritarianism, in managing social media
As citizen journalists, we sometimes moderate and manage social media. Sometimes, we encounter admins who have an authoritarian attitude to their role. There is a better way.
THAT DAILY FONT of online wisdom, the Daily Stoic, recently posted something I think is important to social movements. It proposed that rather than criticise and exclude, we criticise and change something.
That means we become involved in it. Why I mention this is because on several occasions on social media I have seen criticise-and-exclude become the default for facebook pages.
The Daily Stoic advises:
If politics is a snake pit of corruption and avarice, then good people should enter it and improve it, not simply denounce it.
If capitalism is too selfish, then the caring should start businesses with better cultures (which, when successful, will steal market share from the bad actors).
If a group has extreme or offensive views, it shouldn’t be cut off and isolated for fear of “normalizing it.” It should be normalized by encouraging normal people to interact with it, correct it and prod these misguided people towards the right path.
I doubt that last idea would work in some situations, especially in organisations in which their social media and other online presence is an echo chamber resistant to alternative points of view. The second idea about dealing with capitalism’s selfishness by starting better businesses that take market share is demonstrated by the Patagonia outdoor clothing and equipment company’s success in doing this.
Some will find the Daily Stoic’s point about politics too challenging. A common reaction to the fraud and lying we find in politics is avoidance. That might be understandable, however it signifies privilege because not having to indulge in politics and its effects on people and societies implies those doing that are somehow unaffected by it or benefit from it.
A deafness to constructive criticism
Daily Stoic’s point has bearing on how we manage our community organisation and NGO media presence, especially their social media.
Why do I say this? Because I have seen what I can only describe as an allergy to critical comment among organisations even when it is constructive criticism. Sure, it does not happen frequently but even a single instance says something about the values, mentality and behaviours of organisations and the people who inhabit them.
Several times I have seen participants react to critical comment, and much of it has been friendly, constructive criticism, by calling for the banning of the imagined-offender from the social media group. No attempt at engaging the person in conversation, no asking that they be warned in the first instance, just a call for exclusion. Generally, sane admins prevail and usually decline the call. That is about the Daily Stoic’s “it shouldn’t be cut off and isolated” when it comes to critical comment, real or imagined.
Sometimes, critical comment about what someone writes is based on a misreading of what a writer says. People put their own meanings onto what others write and, filtered through their own values and worldviews, they see things which are not there or even implied.
I have seen this occur when someone comments in response to what they see as a criticism about someone they know, a colleague perhaps. They rush to their defence. That’s an admirable thing to do, but only when their perception of the colleague being criticised is correct. Was the writer just being ambiguous or using a type of humour the commentator does not understand? Was what they said poorly-worded? Was no imprecation intended at all?
Perhaps it is best to take critical comment as corrective feedback on what an organisation or individual is doing. Then we can ask: Is valid? Is it a misinterpretation of what was said or done? Does it suggest the organisation or individual should make changes to what they do?
Inappropriate reaction- a couple cases
One case I witnessed arose when a blogger reiterated online a critical comment about community food organisations made at a meeting of a government think-tank. It was only mildly critical, neither hostile nor denigrating. It was also true. It was really corrective feedback about how people in the food movement perceived the organisation.
The food advocacy organisation the offended was a member of was not singled out when the comment was made, however the president the organisation wrote an excessively authoritarian email. Despite the prominent role in the organisation and the years the person reporting the comment had put into it, they were told never to speak on behalf of the organisation again. The organisation’s leadership chose an ad hominen response rather than engage with the criticism, a criticism the blogger merely reported others making. Witnessing the incident, others in the organisation said it had to do with the authoritarian and bullying attitude of the president.
On being unjustly reprimanded, the person who reported the comment left the organisation. That was unfortunate because their work had been important in sustaining it.
Another case I know of occurred on the social media of a permaculture group. An error based on misunderstood advice appeared in a blog. Rather than an admin of the social media group, where a link to the blog was posted, informing the writer an error had been made and leaving it to the poster to correct their copy, the admin’s response was to block them from posting on the organisation’s facebook. No warning was given about this action. In the absense of due process, the admin’s action demonstrated a complete lack of respect and an authoritarian attitude out of character with the usual approach in the permaculture milieu.
Such an absolutist approach is echoed in the ‘about’ pages on many social media groups. Cross the line and you’re out. No space for negotiation or a request to reword the post, no response based on proportionalism in which response is scaled to the provocation.
There have been other instances over the years and all-too-often, a no-negotiation authoritarianism has been the response. The permaculture-themed facebook set up and managed by Matthew Stephens in the US is cited as an example. Matthew at least warns offenders they could be excommunicated if they continue to make post that transgress his rules. Others say he is authoritarian and bullying. A woman who clashed with Matthew went on to set up the ‘Permaculture without Matther Stephens’ facebook.
Hard and uncompromising approaches by social media admins and a lack of proportionality gauged to the perceived offence raises the question of whether leaderships of community organisations and NGOs is becoming more authoritarian or whether social media admin roles are sometimes populated by people with an appetite for power and control.
A better way
As the Daily Stoic says, the intelligent response to challenges real or imagined, even when offered critically, is engagement rather than authoritarianism. “…good people should enter it and improve it, not simply denounce it”.
That means engaging in conversation around a post, because it is through conversation that people come to see things differently and change their mind. I know that because I have done it thanks to social media conversations. I find there are often things we do not know and that we discover during conversation that affects how we perceive something, and leads us to view it differently. People often do not know the whole story around some issue and act only on their limited and at times incomplete and faulty knowledge. Conversation is not as easy as simply banning someone who writes something the admin doesn’t like.
As for a better approach to handling challenging posts on social media, an organisation’s admin would have a policy on how to handle them that would be spelled out on the ‘about’ page or as a fixed post at the top of the page. It might instigate the due process of:
- First, a request for clarification or rewording.
- Next, a warning if that is not done.
- Then, removal of a post.
- After these avenues are taken and the posting of similar items continues, only then banning of the poster for a fixed period or permanently.
This adopts the principle of proportionality and recognises that we all make mistakes, even social media admins.
Ours is the era of strong-man government. Community organisations and NGOs are critical of authoritarianism. If they want to preserve democracy, then a good place to start doing that is within their own organisations and the management of their social media.
More Citizen’s Journalism
A lesson in preparedness
https://link.medium.com/gYvyIXP0LZ
Citizen journalism and civil streets
https://medium.com/@russgrayson_au/citizen-journalism-and-civil-streets-9ec8de58172f
Dealing with aggressive commentators
https://medium.com/citizen-journalism/dealing-with-aggressive-commentators-fedde9c4e4a1
19. Write sticky stories
https://medium.com/citizen-journalism/19-write-sticky-stories-1e59ba02c2e3
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