Earlier this week, U.S. President Barack Obama sent his first tweet from his new personal Twitter account.
After just a few days, he’s already acquired more than two million followers and a lot of replies to his handful of tweets.
Some of them are just hellos, others are trying to raise issues. Others yet immediately greeted the president’s personal arrival onto social media with racism and other negative tweets and even some threatening images.
Being a public figure isn’t easy, and signing up for social media can almost inevitably mean you’ll be criticized and attract attention from the masses.
While St. Albert’s politicians hardly attract the kind of focus that the leader of the United States does, some of them do get their share of negative messages on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter.
“I think something like the online realm, it’s easier for people to say things that they won’t say in the offline world,” said Irfan Chaudhry, a criminology instructor at MacEwan whose research includes looking at social media. “It’s a safe space for people to say unsafe things.”
Public figures are somewhat of an easy target, Chaudhry said. While there’s been a shift from anonymous users to more people using their real names and photos online, lobbing nasty comments at people with a medium like Twitter can sometimes carry little real-world consequence, especially when done anonymously.
People being negative towards each other is nothing new, and Chaudhry said that social media isn’t necessarily making things worse – but the negativity is more visible.
Tash Taylor, the first candidate to declare she’s running in the upcoming St. Albert city council byelection, has had to pull back from using Twitter for a time.
“This is the first time I’ve ever experienced something like this; I’ve never seen this side of St. Albert,” she said. “It’s important to remember it’s a particular group, it’s not the majority of the electorate that spend their days bashing people on social media.”
Part of what she was harassed about was what she says is misinformation – that she’s a city employee or the rumours that she is a relative of Gilles Prefontaine or managed his campaign. She is the executive director of the St. Albert Housing Society, which isn’t the same as being a city employee, she said, and she doesn’t know Prefontaine personally.
At the same time, Taylor did note it gets her name out there.
“I’m all for fair debate and dissenting opinions,” she said, but it’s the same people over and over and kind of a “group think or ganging up” where it’s tough to have a meaningful conversation.
Natalie Mikus, another byelection candidate, has had a more positive experience on social media. She’s received some messages on social media, some of which she chooses not to respond to, but said there’s nothing she’d consider harassment.
“I just don’t get really offended … so I’m not a really fun target,” she said.
She has seen some of the personal attacks online, but said she’s been lucky to not be on the receiving end.
Edward Ramsden is also running in the byelection, and he said there’s a lot of negativity that’s aimed at politicians.
But he feels lucky, because he can respond. He also wants to focus on building the community up.
“I can defend myself publicly,” he said, adding he feels bad for city staff who can’t defend themselves.
He noted during the last municipal election, when he planned an all-candidates forum that conflicted with another proposed forum, he faced some backlash online.
Jaye Walter, who ran for the Wildrose in Spruce Grove-St. Albert during the recent provincial election, said he definitely saw some negative backlash and some attacks on Twitter, and even ended up getting what he described as “hate mail” in his email.
Some of it was based on his choice of party and its platform, but sometimes it got into personal attacks, he said.
“The reality is being a candidate is tough,” Walter said. “You’ve got to have a thick skin.”
During the last municipal election campaign in 2013, anonymous blogs and social media played a part. Councillors still can face questions, criticism and negativity today.
“During the last election campaign, I scoured all websites and blogs that I could find for five months leading up to the election trying to learn about what was being said leading up to the election. I was appalled by some of the stuff that was said, lies being told, innuendos about candidates, tweets, [Facebook posts], blogs with false accusations and more. If that type of print would have been done by teenagers it would have been seen as online teen bullying, but for some adults, they believe anyone is fair game for anything with the freedom of speech umbrella supposedly being purported as the basis to do it,” said Nolan Crouse in an emailed statement.
Coun. Cathy Heron said she has been on the receiving end of negativity. She says her Facebook account was hacked and someone posted pornographic material on her page. She has also been harassed via anonymous Twitter users.
“It’s too bad, because I would like to engage them and have a conversation with them,” she said. “These people, I don’t think they care or want to understand the full issues, they just want to poke. It’s fun to sit in front of the computer and be anonymous and poke at people, and public officials are generally the first place that they poke.”
She said it does get better, and politicians learn to develop thick skin. She chooses to not block anybody because she wants to hear what people are thinking. She said when the language becomes vile or someone’s constantly critical and doesn’t want an exchange of ideas, their message is lost on her.
Heron wouldn’t describe such harassment as happening frequently.
“When I don’t engage it I think they get bored and move on,” she said.
Coun. Sheena Hughes had a bit of a different view about some anonymous online activities.
“I have heard from people who have stated that they are concerned about coming forward and saying who they are for fear that they will also be sued by the city manager,” she said, referring to the defamation case launched by city manager Patrick Draper, funded by the city, against an anonymous blog.
“It certainly puts a venue where people are able to attack other people, if they want to, but it’s also a situation where people are afraid of retaliation from the city,” she said.
Hughes does experience people attacking her on social media and other places online, she said, but “they have the freedom of speech to do that, that’s one of the things you have to take when you’re a politician.” There is hope how people treat each other online is getting somewhat better, Chaudhry said. He said he’s seen improvements in how people interact.
The online world can be a cruel place, and Chaudhry had some blunt advice for those public figures – and others – who use social media.
“Users need to be more aware that what you do tweet and say online will have impacts in the offline world, both as political figures but also as your average Joe or Jane user,” Chaudhry said.
When it comes to facing harassment, his advice was even more to the point.
“Don’t feed the trolls,” he said. Instead, he suggests ignoring them or inviting people into a space where their grievances can be aired in a more constructive way.
