Hate Filled Facebook

There is a lot of agreement that on the Internet, the lowest form of life live in the You Tube comments threads. There's a lot to be said for this, but I think it's fair to say you can find worse on Facebook.

To gain objectivity on this it's important to remove yourself from the issue of the day that happens to be the topic of the Facebook group in question and look at what is being written.

It's venomous stuff. I watch people I consider friends joining such groups and can't help but click the link. I never like what I see. I can't decide whether these friends just joined based on the title and didn't read the wall, but if they did read it and still want to be associated with it, it becomes harder for me to want to be associated with them.

These groups are usually about one or both of two things. Hate of a group of people based on belief X or hate of an individual based on something they have done.

I should be able to look at "let's kick all muslims out of England" vs "Get the scum that killed Rhys Jones" and see some sort of a difference, but I don't. One at it's extreme would probably advocate a genocide whilst the other at it's least extreme advocates a murderer going to jail. It shouldn't be hard to see which of these two statements is more rational and supportable by a reasonable person. Once you actually look at the group behind the title, that objectivity gets buried behind walls of hate filled language. The topics wander, no question. The former had a wall post about us (England I guess) bombing them (anyone's guess - Muslimland?) in their country, which if you'll recall was not the topic. The latter was from memory a long string of people describing in graphic detail how they would kill the perpetrator. The vague original group name means this is technically on topic, but who is it helping?

When it's about a child being killed or abused it's particularly hard to read. Groups such as these are void of a goal in general. Nobody is on the other side of the argument. If I had to guess i'd say these groups comprise a gathering of seemingly irrational people with a small peppering of rational ones because many rational people take one look and decide not to touch it with a ten foot pole. I am one such person. I can't decide whether my friends are or not. I rarely see them having left a wall post either way, but the act of joining in itself says something. Don't assume that joining a group doesn't associate you with the beliefs of people in that group. There may not be a clear definition of what a Facebook group is actually supposed to represent in the so called real world, but if you imagine a community centre, rows of chairs and motivational speakers with agendas you're probably close. Imagine the people in these rows shouting out some of the things you've seen on walls of these groups. Do you want to be in this room? Would you put your name on a list of members?

Some of it is hard to fathom. Child kills child. Child murder, even by child, is the worst thing imaginable, so even though the killer was a child, the group decides this other child must die too. I can't take seriously a group of people that want to inflict a vigilante death penalty on a kid... Unless of course that kid has the evil gene. Then I think we should burn him. Sound stupid? Try reading a few of these groups, and if you agree with me, consider not joining them. In six months time when your name and picture randomly appears in the first few members shown, you have no idea what that top wall post just below it will say. Groups are fine, but not for this!