Alfie Gallagher ✒ takes Ruth Dudley Edwards to task for defending the "Cowardice Of Anonymous Abuse."

It is depressing but sadly not surprising to see my dear friend Ruth Dudley Edwards once again defend the indefensible in her recent Newsletter apologia for Eoghan Harris. For many years, Ruth has rightly and courageously condemned the trolling of Sinn Féin’s critics by anonymous Twitter Shinnerbots. It is therefore all the more dispiriting to witness the mental gymnastics she now employs in order to condone Eoghan Harris's anonymous trolling of his journalist foes with a seemingly ever-growing army of anonymous Indobots.
 
The hypocrisy here is truly breath-taking. If Fintan O'Toole or Gene Kerrigan had used anonymous social media accounts to troll their political opponents, would Ruth deem it acceptable rather than odious behaviour? Would she be at all surprised if their employers considered such behaviour a breach of trust and indeed of basic journalistic ethics?

As Sarah McInerney rightly argued in her interview with Eoghan Harris, if the latter had wanted a larger yet legitimate platform to expound his views on Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin, he could have easily set up a Twitter account under his own name, even if this would involve input and assistance from others who wished to remain anonymous. Many public figures take this approach. He could also have started a blog and/or a podcast. However, the real reason Eoghan Harris chose not to exercise any of these options is patently obvious: he wanted to be abusive rather than informative, and he knew that the only way he could escape sanction for his conduct was anonymity.
 
Ruth believes that Eoghan Harris has been “silenced”, that both his sacking by the Sindo and the removal of his Indobots by Twitter together constitute “another major blow to free speech.” I think this is bullshit. I say this as an old-school libertarian leftist who understands why freedom of expression and civil liberties were historically cornerstone left-wing principles and why they always should be. Like Ruth, I too am concerned about the selective, censorial power of Big Tech. It is for these reasons that I oppose the permanent banning of Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter.
 
If Eoghan Harris were permanently barred from using Twitter or Facebook platforms under his own name, then I would oppose that too. But that's not what happened here. On the contrary, Eoghan Harris chose the cowardice of anonymous abuse rather than the courage of publicly expressing his most visceral, vicious convictions. He chose the cloak of invisibility not to inform but to bully. To borrow Anthony McIntyre's incisive adage about anonymous online bullies, invisible people have invisible rights. That my friend Ruth cannot see this is, as I’ve said, depressing but sadly not surprising.

⏭ Alfie Gallagher is a Sligo based blogger.

Abusive Rather Than Informative

Alfie Gallagher ✒ takes Ruth Dudley Edwards to task for defending the "Cowardice Of Anonymous Abuse."

It is depressing but sadly not surprising to see my dear friend Ruth Dudley Edwards once again defend the indefensible in her recent Newsletter apologia for Eoghan Harris. For many years, Ruth has rightly and courageously condemned the trolling of Sinn Féin’s critics by anonymous Twitter Shinnerbots. It is therefore all the more dispiriting to witness the mental gymnastics she now employs in order to condone Eoghan Harris's anonymous trolling of his journalist foes with a seemingly ever-growing army of anonymous Indobots.
 
The hypocrisy here is truly breath-taking. If Fintan O'Toole or Gene Kerrigan had used anonymous social media accounts to troll their political opponents, would Ruth deem it acceptable rather than odious behaviour? Would she be at all surprised if their employers considered such behaviour a breach of trust and indeed of basic journalistic ethics?

As Sarah McInerney rightly argued in her interview with Eoghan Harris, if the latter had wanted a larger yet legitimate platform to expound his views on Northern Ireland and Sinn Féin, he could have easily set up a Twitter account under his own name, even if this would involve input and assistance from others who wished to remain anonymous. Many public figures take this approach. He could also have started a blog and/or a podcast. However, the real reason Eoghan Harris chose not to exercise any of these options is patently obvious: he wanted to be abusive rather than informative, and he knew that the only way he could escape sanction for his conduct was anonymity.
 
Ruth believes that Eoghan Harris has been “silenced”, that both his sacking by the Sindo and the removal of his Indobots by Twitter together constitute “another major blow to free speech.” I think this is bullshit. I say this as an old-school libertarian leftist who understands why freedom of expression and civil liberties were historically cornerstone left-wing principles and why they always should be. Like Ruth, I too am concerned about the selective, censorial power of Big Tech. It is for these reasons that I oppose the permanent banning of Donald Trump from Facebook and Twitter.
 
If Eoghan Harris were permanently barred from using Twitter or Facebook platforms under his own name, then I would oppose that too. But that's not what happened here. On the contrary, Eoghan Harris chose the cowardice of anonymous abuse rather than the courage of publicly expressing his most visceral, vicious convictions. He chose the cloak of invisibility not to inform but to bully. To borrow Anthony McIntyre's incisive adage about anonymous online bullies, invisible people have invisible rights. That my friend Ruth cannot see this is, as I’ve said, depressing but sadly not surprising.

⏭ Alfie Gallagher is a Sligo based blogger.

1 comment:

  1. Alfie - Ruth ended up sounding like Mark Regev or Danny Morrison on this one. Harris had every opportunity to create a blog for getting extra-Indo views out there. After he excoriated those who hide behind pen names to launch abuse he forfeited any right to use one himself. It was a bullying attempt at censorship. That he has become a national laughing stock is a predicament of his own making. Ruth did herself no favours by defending him.

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