MEDIA ISSUE: CHARLOTTE DAWSON BLAMES THE MEDIA FOR TWITTER TROLLS

A recent profile event was Charlotte Dawson's mental breakdown from her Twitter trolls. Charlotte explains in a 60 Minutes interview how her breakdown and suicide attempt is to be blamed on social media trolls. I am here to discuss whether this is valid, and decide how much the media/public is to blame for the situation.

My Opinion:

The media (in particular social media) and the public are to blame to a certain extent. It gives people a platform to, at most times, act anonymously and say things to people they would not usually say. People wouldn't say something to a persons face with a paper bag covering their head to hide their identity, they simply wouldn't say anything at all. Why should things be different online?

Clearly Charlotte had some underlying problems that were exposed by this situation. It most certainly depends on what sort of person you are. Some people could look at those comments on Twitter and not be bothered in the slightest way, others like Charlotte could take complete offence.

The easiest way to avoid it would be to turn off from that aspect of social media, and not give people anything to feed off of.

She has made a television career with the help of the media, polarising her image to her audience. At one end of the scale, she relies on social media to uphold her reputation and exposure, however on another scale, it has its lows and comes back to hit her in the face.

However, as easy as it may sound to just ‘turn off the computer’, I don’t think anyone can just genuinely turn off a death threat, no matter how media-savvy that person is.

Clearly, as a social media medium, Twitter needs to think seriously about paying closer attention to the content uploaded on their site every day. The same way Facebook blog users are penalised for not using it appropriately, Twitter should folow and do the same. If these elements were put in place, perhaps none of this abuse would happen to Charlotte, or anyone, at least on a lower scale.

When looking at someone to blame, you could blame the Twitter trolls for writing what they wrote, you could blame Charlotte for fuelling the fire by engaging with them, you could blame Twitter for providing a platform for such things to be said, you could blame the Government for not policing social media, Hell, you can blame the advent of the Internet itself.

Reference: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8525498
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