Be Careful What you Retweet
Posted by Maman Poulet on 22 Nov 2009 at 10:08 pm | Tagged as: Disability, Irish Media, Social Media
Tonight watching X Factor and reading my twitter stream I saw a few too many jokes about Susan Boyle’s mental health and intellectual disability.
Some people seem to have found other people’s jokes funny too and retweeted them. Colm O’ Gorman, (Bio: Author, activist, director of Amnesty International Ireland) for one.
And people wonder why some in the disability community view Amnesty Ireland’s campaign on Mental Health issues with more than a bit of cynicism?
Stunned and very disappointed.
Update:
Colm has responded in the comments and has also blogged on the matter on his own blog.
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[...] of Amnesty International makes fun of Susan Boyle’s mental health. Ah sure it was only a bit of [...]
That’s not good at all- disablism and a lack of consideration. Though Twitter is full of nastiness and bigotry when used by nasty bigots, you’d expect better from Amensty’s director.
The public and the private, together at last.
[...] Suzy on Amnesty International’s Colm O’Gorman and the dangers of retweeting. [...]
Just see this as another public pronouncement from the director of Amnesty which sacrifices his own organisation’s campaigns on the altar of his own self promotion.
I actually saw that(and other assorted swipes at Susan Boyle) on my girlfriend’s twitter feed and thought that it was mean spitited – Susan Boyle has clearly gone through a lot in her life (not to mention in the last year)and deserves better in my opinion.
Yeah, I saw that (although not as re-Tweeted by O’Gorman), as well as a re-Tweeted comment made (this time about the X Factor twins) that seemed to find it funny to laugh at the Special Olympics.
Not impressed.
The ease with which so many people, private and public figures, make jokes about Susan’s disabilities, appearance etc. is really shocking. If it were a matter of race would it happen with such ease? Not that there should be a competition but I was wondering as I read comments online and indeed heard Newstalk radio this morning on the Breakfast show.
Has Colm acknowledged your comment yet Suzy? Surely he knows this is very insensitive?
On Sunday night I re-tweeted a comment about the X-Factor. I am genuinely saddened that this comment has clearly caused hurt and offence. I posted it because I thought it spoke to the media circus that the X-Factor has become, and concerns about how many peoples’ vulnerabilities are put on show in the name of mass entertainment. It wasn’t a comment on any of the artists or their own personal health. To be honest, I was appalled when I re-read it and understood how and why it was taken as such.
As someone who has both professional, but more significantly personal, experience of mental health difficulties I am very aware of how sensitive an issue this is.
Thanks for your comment Colm. I do feel the media circus around x factor and indeed the way in which people with disabilities and other issues are exploited on the programme needs discussion. It will take a lot more than 140 characters to do this and the rights of people to perform and take part also needs to be celebrated and protected.
Sure just the other day when I heard a taxi driver make racist remarks about Nigerians, I quickly texted my friends the comments. You know, so they’d know I was appalled at the racist remarks. I then shouted them out the window of the taxi, again to let people on the street know I was appalled. Take that racist taxi driver! I’m sure he got the context of those racist remarks.
Agree Suzie. On both counts.
Especially re the 140 characters point.
Imagine if it was a retweet by a Bishop then O’Gorman wouldn’t be long getting on his high horse..
Amnesty – do what we say and not what we do.