Words matter – and when they are used as weapons online we should be alarmed

Words matter because words wound and divide. They can spread hate, fear and ignorance, and they cannot go unchallenged. What happens online inevitably spills over into every day, face-to-face conversations.

Every single day I come across comments posted on various Facebook pages which are utterly horrifying. Some pages are worse than others, but it’s a disease that has spread across far too many.

Without exception, every single story we post about housing – a new development or a council-funded programme – is swamped with messages predicting they will all go to migrants. Every article about any initiative to tackle homelessness goes down the same road.

The statements are simply not true, but repeated often enough they can start to gain traction.

Last week, in the council chamber, Councillor David Barratt highlighted just how out of control things are getting on social media. The Dalgety Bay councillor gave two examples which ought to have had Facebook taking action – but the tech giant won’t. It rarely does.

In one, a photo posted of Asian men at Aberdour beach sparked a pile on that was truly grotesque. The comments included terms such as paedos and nonces, and cries of “ship them up, ship them out” – and that’s the polite, sanitised version. Their crime? They were having a barbecue.

Another photo showed officers outside a takeaway with the claim it was a raid by immigration, inviting another lurid pile-on. It was, in fact, officers investigating the theft of cooking oil.

When Cllr Barratt posted criticism of the commentary, he became the target for abuse. The first defence of those who have no defence is always to attack and go even lower.

Social media never stops, so monitoring comments has become a 24/7 business, which is simply impossible to manage, so you are always playing catch up after the damage has been done.

Our own pages are not immune. I wish they were. Every day I mute or delete comments which are simply appalling, and none of which would get within a mile of a news page.

Criticism, however trenchant, is one thing, but spouting offensive views is another world entirely. It feels as if social media is on a race to the bottom, so at what point will someone draw a line and say enough is enough?

If people are relaxed about hurtling words like nonce and paedo on a digital platform, and posting images of a noose to leave no-one in doubt about what they think should happen – how chilling can you get? – I suspect the bar has gone almost as low as it can.

Parts of the UK media have been just as ugly in print over the generations, but we have allowed social media to fuel the almost casual demonisation of migrants and take things to a whole new level, giving too many people the excuse to blame someone for their own inadequacies and miserable lives.

And the saddest part of it all is we seem to not care when we should be appalled and outraged.

Those who sound the dog whistle are doing so longer and louder than ever – grifters monetising hate and pandering to a growing right wing are debasing how we communicate.

Words matter. They matter more than ever when too many people are allowed to pick them up and use them as weapons online.