People write on facebook as if it is anonymous.
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Guess what you keyboard warriors, it’s not.
Your words are out there in the public domain to be repeated and shared over and over again.
It’s searchable and retrievable for God knows how long.
In most cases these keyboard warriors wouldn’t dream of putting pen to paper but have no hesitation in churning out their vile rubbish on the keyboard to a much wider audience.
Cowra Local Court magistrate Peter Dare aptly refers to facebook as “the lavatory wall of the internet”.
Of course it doesn’t have to be, used responsibly the internet, and especially facebook, can be an excellent medium.
As is often the case it is a minority who set the tone and ruin well intentions for the majority who sit in front of their computer or reach for their phone to access facebook.
The power, or abuse, of the internet has been in work in Cowra over the past couple of weeks in response to an increase in Cowra break and enters.
What was a well meaning facebook group set up to warn the community of the dangers of not locking up at night and being alert to suspicious activity quickly spiralled out of control.
The administrator reigned in the unruly, racist and stereotypical behaviour and comments of some contributors but not before a significant amount of hysteria had set in.
I in no way mean to be critical of the administrator, the Cowra Break-ins page, as it was known at one stage, was and remain’s a sound idea.
The problem, as anyone who is an administrator of a facebook page, is that facebook is very difficult to monitor and control.
Whilst most of us sleep at night the keyboard warriors are hard it spreading rumour into fact.
Cowra has been the loser in this recent episode.
The metropolitan electronic media has been seen salivating at the opportunity to broadcast a version of the events all sensible Cowra residents know is a long way from the truth.
As all facebook users saw last week the real story has been quickly set aside for a version that is much more popular with the bottom feeders that exist in all communities.
Have a nice day.
Andrew Fisher
