And last but not least: "Left-wing clean gangs" on Facebook
People believe that only «friends» can see their comments on Facebook. But then the comment ends up in the public eye, and people have to step down from their positions. Are some people simply uninformed, or is it a good thing that such comments are punished?
A board member of the SVP Steffisburg BE wrote a nasty comment on Facebook about the ban on plastic bags at Swiss store checkouts. According to SDA, the media officer of the Steffisburg SVP section wrote that he recommended "giving each and every one of these left-wing scumbags a specially sealed plastic bag and then quickly putting it over their head and tying it up with a long cable tie". The SVP Steffisburg is now examining measures. The slogan is a comment on the Facebook page of Thomas Fuchs, a member of the SVP cantonal council for the city of Berne. He criticizes the ban on plastic bags at checkouts recently passed by the Swiss parliament. The author of the statement is Ueli Tobler. According to SDA, he apologized on his own Facebook page to anyone who felt hurt by the statement. He had made the comments as a private individual and they were "politically incorrect". Tobler has since deleted the post.
Ueli Tobler isn't the only one who has used abusive language, but at the same time doesn't realize that not everything on social media is as private as people sometimes assume. In June, for example, an SVP politician from the city of Zurich resigned from the school board following a comment on Twitter. The president of the SVP's Schwyz section also resigned in September following a comment on Facebook.
Despite all the obvious difficulties with social media, one thing remains the same: the comment went too far. Fuchs thought so too: he distanced himself from it, as he confirmed to SDA on request. Thomas Fuchs believes that Tobler - and other commentators - may not have been aware that his Facebook page was public. People mistakenly believed that their posts could only be seen by Facebook "friends".
You have to understand that too. Then, of course, the comment is okay again. After all, nobody can know that the public is reading along. Or, to put it without irony: every member of the public who is on social networks should perhaps inform themselves briefly about how they work. Or at least remember the following sentence: Internet is generally a way of exchanging thoughts and data, otherwise it would probably be called Solonet. (uma)
Teaser image: Keystone
