Your vote overcomes online bullying. Caution … Strong Language!

2026.10.23

One of the first things they tell new Councillors is not to get involved in ‘flame wars’ on social media – endless, time-wasting back and forth posting with people dedicated to a particular issue who aren’t necessarily trying to resolve an issue so much as playing to the crowd and looking to score points. 

The suggestion is to articulate your position clearly and then engage with people directly, where meaningful discussion and useful dialogue is possible.  From a purely practical perspective, it may be too time consuming to try to keep on top of every thread in every forum.  Reviewing them periodically and summarizing a response, where useful, is an effective approach.  I’m currently reviewing the comments made to my recent posts and expect to have summary comments posted on Saturday.

In a moderated forum, where there are rules of engagement governing language and behaviour, this may be less of an issue, but it does take time and effort for the moderator to keep the peace.  These can become places where genuine dialogue takes place and various positions are explored.  Disagreements and differences of opinion occur and are dealt with respectfully.  This is social media at its best.

In an unmoderated forum, it can be like the wild west, anything goes.  There are no rules of engagement and disagreements or differences of opinion often degenerate into personal attacks.  The objective isn’t to achieve a productive outcome, but rather to win the battle at any cost.  This approach drives people away from these discussions for fear of personal abuse.  It becomes an echo chamber where only the voice of the strident minority is heard.  This is social media at its worst.

The danger this presents is the perception that a vocal minority represents the wishes of the whole community, simply because that community doesn’t wish to engage in online warfare. 

The remedy for this is your vote.  The beauty of our democratic system is that it allows all voters the safety and security to make their voice heard without fear of retribution. 

Take full advantage of this on election day and exercise your right to vote.

And now, as promised, some examples.

This is a small sample taken over the past few months.  Note that they are not in sequence and not necessarily related to each other, but I don’t think they lose anything by lacking context.  ‘They’ generally refers to the current Council.