(no title) (original) (raw)

Inspired by numerous rants past, recent past and probably future too.

If people are interested in defending equality and diversity on the internet, that interest does not exist in the vacuum of the internet. I’m getting tired of people showing up on FFR using language which people point out is offensive and then saying, “You’re picking on this thing I said on the internet when there is real misogyny/homophobia/racism/classism/ableism in the world, why don’t you do something about that?”

1. By pointing out that these things are offensive on the Internet, they are, by extension, pointing out that these things are offensive outside of the Internet. An awareness that there is a human being on the other side of the computer and multiple other human beings reading the exchanges not involved in the discussion pretty much guarantees that the message is being carried outside of the Internet, unless there is some ridiculous belief that we all forget what we see and read the second we disconnect.

2. I can’t speak for everyone and I would suggest that a debate on language use on FFR is not the place to talk about what we are doing when we switch the Internet off, but I would assume that the people who are defending equality and diversity on the Internet carry that interest outside of the Internet and are doing whatever they can within their means and capabilities to defend equality and diversity when they are not sat at a computer. It is completely illogical to think that because a person has spent a tiny portion of their day calling out shit on the Internet that they then sit there and say “My work is done and I don’t need to pay attention to that stuff on the news now.”

To summarise: If you use bigoted language on the Internet, you are likely to be a bigot when you switch the computer off; if you speak against bigoted language on the Internet, you are likely to be fighting these issues when you switch the computer off. Can this be the last I hear of the ‘bigger issues than the internet that you could be paying attention to’ line of defence for bigotry? I doubt it but I feel better for saying it.