Twitter Twits

More observations from the weird world of Twitter.
This time?
The tweets you see along the lines of "You have a problem if you get offended by my tweets, not me".

I've seen a fair few of these over time, many RT'd by people who obviously seem to share the sentiment. But ... lets see if I can pick this one apart a bit.

Twitter is a large social network, with most people pleased to have as many followers as possible and to be re-tweeted occasionally. It's personal validation time. Not a lot wrong with that in itself. So first off, what you tweet on a social network like twitter is intended to reach and presumably amuse / inform as many people as you can reach. (Yes, there are exceptions, but in the main, most users like having followers and RT's).

So basic premise, this person has tweeted something to the audience they have, and someone somewhere has thought .. "Oy, that's a bit annoying" for some reason and bothered to @ reply them back.

That seems to me a perfectly natural way for a social network to function. It's feedback. As well as the stars and retweets, you are also almost certain to get the occasional "I don't like or agree with that". Seems like common sense?

Now a little deeper. What someone is saying with "You have a problem if you get offended by my tweets, not me". Is "I'm not taking responsibility for the fact I may have offended some people". Life isn't black and white. A fair few times, you can cause offence simply by misinterpretation, or by hitting the raw nerve of someone particularly sensitive about a topic. Other times, you can actually be being down right offensive.

Lets take misinterpretation. Is that the readers fault not the writers? Possibly. It's also possible it's an ambiguously phrased tweet. Might be a good time to go "Oh. Yeah. Didn't realise you could read it like that", and learn a little. Or just simply "No, I meant..." and problem solved.

Hit a raw nerve of someone? Take a personal example. I saw a tweet once that said "If someone has keyed your car you must be an asshole". About 5 days earlier, some local idiot on the way home from the pub had keyed my car and about 9 others in the next road. So I bit. I replied explaining I'd just had some moron vandal key my car and I didn't see why it made me an asshole. Perhaps pointless. But. Raw nerve hit. It happens. Might also be a good time to consider asinine blanket statements calling a set of people assholes as possibly a bad idea. "Ha ha. Oh. Sorry".

Now take the last possibility. The writer is tweeting something materially offensive to a lot of people for the sake of a cheap laugh or for effect. Usually one of the big topics involved here, misogyny, racism, homophobia, abortion, rape, etc ... Now ... I'm more than happy I live on a planet where people will see that kind of moronic behaviour and @ someone back telling them it's actually pretty darn offensive. I don't think that's the problem of the person being offended at all. In most cases I'd tend to believe that's the writer being a prat and "having a problem".

Minor subset. Lets say someone is tweeting strongly anti-nazi stuff and gets some nazi supporters replying to them about how offensive they feel this is. In this kind of area, I'm with the writer, but I'm also thinking, hey, if you're going to pick a topic to rant on like that, you have to expect some kind of come back and hopefully enjoy arguing the point back if not just block them and don't get offended.

So in answer to "You have a problem if you get offended by my tweets, not me" ...
No dear writer.
It's you that has the problem if you keep offending people.
How about you take some personal responsibility?