At the age of 45 I got caught out by lack of persec (and probably lack of sense) on FB which left me honestly seriously unsettled.
I had a friend who was a bit of an animal rights activist, and I saw a comment she made on a photo of a Chinese guy, a 'street performer' who had a small Monkey severely restrictivly tied up. I read some of the hundreds of comments, a lot of them being calls to castrate the fella, find him and kill him slowly, all animal abusers need to be tortured and then killed as painfully as possible, one person even said she wished the human race would be wiped out by nuclear war so the animals could live in peace...some seriously mental stuff!
I commented on the photo too, along the lines of "not nice, but I have worked in China, I know how poor the Chinese are, and this, right or wrong was the guys livelihood, coupled by a general lack of human rights let alone animal rights its not an issue that can be dealt with so easily, its just a sad fact of life, and really calls for torturing and murdering people or Nuclear holocaust was perhaps going a bit too far"
Jesus I would have expected less of a violent reaction had I wandered into mothercare and suggested that buggering babies should be made a legal hobby! there were then calls for my death, my castration etc etc etc, even when some of the less nuttier activists spoke in my defence after all killing humans because a mokey is tied up and beaten is a bit ******* mental, they were 'turned on' too as disgusting traitors!
Now all internet banter, however vitriolic, not a problem just sign off and say Jeez there some loons on this planet. Next time I was on facebook (I had an open profile at the time) there were all sorts of messages of hatred etc etc in my inbox,...no problem just wierdos, But someone warned me off about a certain' lunatic' in the USA whose daughter was alledgedly a Psychiatrist, Now at the time my newborn son had been undergoing treatment for a serious heart condition, and I had photos of him and my missus in hospital etc etc This womans daughter had 'diagnosed' by my comments that I was undoubtedly abused as a child and am probably abusing my baby boy, and that she had notiifed the authorities in the US to flag my name if I ever enter the US, and had friends in the UK who could do the same!
I'll admit I was well unsettled, child abuse allegations are something that you cant treat lightly as all it takes is some do-gooder in a child care department to write your name down on some file and that potentially could be it!
First thing persec is extremely ******* important even if you think it is just your mates looking at your profile. Secondly big mistake putting my boy on my profile. Even though I am 1000% proud of him...once again you never know who's looking. Of course it didnt take me long to realise that what this woman was writing was complete bullschitt, but when it comes to my son's safety, you never ******* know how serious something is or not!
Now imagine that I am not 45, but 12 or 13 how unsettling will an immature child take some of the things that may be written about them? We all know it is easy to delete an e-mail, or block a person, but christ even here on arrse people get wound up and abusive, I even had someone yesterday say they despise me for something that I had written (sad ******!) but we as adults can take it! children cant, and unfortunately they do need some protection from their own inability to just turn the computer off!
