Twitter Theyre Fighting Again Mark Theyre Not Being Good Boys Mark
Matt Gurney: The Sue-Ann Levy lesson of how (not) to use social media
With no editors, producers and call screeners to save the hotheads, Twitter ensures many ill-considered outbursts will end badly.
You might want to take a seat. This is going to take a while to explain.
On Monday night, during the final U.S. presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, the Toronto Sun's city hall columnist took to Twitter to make a bizarre statement. "Obama says he 'will stand' with Israel if attacked and they are a 'true friend,'" Sue-Ann Levy wrote. "His nose is growing again. #MuslimBS."
It was not clear from the tweet, or any that preceded it, what Levy meant by "#MuslimBS", which, translated out of Twitter-speak into normal English, would mean, "That's Muslim bullshit." It certainly left open the possibility that Levy was one of the many people who continue to believe that the President of the United States is a secret Muslim, a pretend Christian with a hidden Islamic agenda.
Immediately, other Twitter users began asking Levy to clarify what she had meant. That would have been a great opportunity for her to do two things. She could have deleted the Tweet, and while that wouldn't have undone the damage, it would have mitigated it considerably. Or she could have tried to present some semi-rational explanation for what "#MuslimBS" could mean, apart from her saying the President is a Muslim.
Personally, I think the latter task would have been preferable, if difficult. It seems clear to me that what people assumed she was saying — the President's a closet Muslim — is indeed what she was saying. But if she'd been able to take any other position, saying, for example, that she was worried the President promoted "BS" foreign policy positions in the Muslim world, she would have had plausible deniability.
Instead, Levy began mocking those who criticized her statement, refused to answer numerous (polite) requests for clarification from multiple sources, and, to the surprise of few who know her, portrayed herself as a victim of attacks by two jerks, namely the National Post's Chris Selley and, well, me. "Guess it makes Matt/Chris feel manly to attack me. So informed about what's going on in Israel. Jerks."
How'd that come about? After Levy's initial statement, Chris Selley retweeted it (shared it with those who follow his account). That led some other person who was on Twitter that night to call Chris a "coward" and say, "Well we know where Selley will be. Whining as usual as far away from Israel as safely can be." Levy then agreed with that statement, noting, "So true."
That's when I got in. Not because Chris needs me as a bodyguard — he's a colleague and a friend, but he's also a grown man. I responded simply because the statement was absurd. It's true that Chris lives in Toronto, a comfortable distance from Israel. Thing is … so does Levy. And the other guy who called Chris a coward claims to live in Kitchener, even further from Israel than Chris. If Levy and her supporter were tweeting from the Golan Heights or Sredot, they'd have a point. As it is, it was just a bizarre statement, and I said so, noting, "Odd coming from people who live in Toronto and K-W. Exactly as far from, and a bit further than, Israel as @cselley."
And that, in Levy's world, is an attack. Agreeing with some random Internet cretin that Chris Selley is a coward for living in Toronto? No problem. Having someone point out that's a bit hypocritical? VICIOUS ATTACK!
Glass jaw, much?
Chris and I were hardly the only people who got into it with her. Her response was the same in all the instances— evade, attack, play victim card, repeat. The closest she came to addressing the issue was inviting people to check out some YouTube clips that raised questions about Obama. What questions? She wouldn't say.
It was thoroughly embarrassing to watch, and eventually Levy just stopped tweeting. The next day, the Toronto Sunpublicly chastised her, and disavowed any support for her comments: "Sue-Ann Levy's tweet on the U.S. presidential debate had an inappropriate hashtag. The tweet doesn't reflect the views of the Toronto Sun." That's one way of putting it. Perhaps closer to the truth was the Post's Jonathan Kay, who wrote: "I don't think I have ever seen a person so determined to self-destruct in a single unrepentant hate-Twittering session as [Sue Ann Levy] tonight."
Though it may sound ironic after everything above, I rather like Levy. On the occasions I've met her, she's been pleasant and personable, with a great sense of humour. Her writing is often a bit "out there" for my tastes, but she gets stories and often does good things with them. And, if nothing else, she perfectly suits her role at the Sun. She's a hell raiser. Sure, she goes a bit nuts now and then, but the Sun keeps her around for a reason.
But the Twitter meltdown is embarrassing, and alarming. What causes otherwise intelligent people do go so thoroughly off the rails in public, to the point that their employer must publicly disavow their statements?
I blame two factors: Levy's own hot-headedness and how easy social media makes it for people to provoke her. It wasn't all that long ago that someone like Levy, who clearly takes even questions as direct personal assaults, would have been protected from the world by distance. She'd have had editors for her columns and producers and call screeners for her broadcast segments. Lines of defence, in other words. People could give her a call or email her, and perhaps she'd respond as explosively then as she did on Twitter. But even if she did indeed blow her top, it wouldn't be public. The damage would be contained.
That's not the case anymore. Twitter has seen to that. And for someone like Levy, who takes evident pride in being a "feisty" "shit disturber" (those descriptions pulled from her Toronto Sun and Twitter bios, respectively, so I'm not making them up), it's obviously going to be hard to know when you've gone too far. I like people who stir the pot. I stir it occasionally myself. But people who enjoy causing a ruckus, like Levy, are generally not well equipped to know when things have gone too far. Indeed, I've often wondered if people who come to take pride in their habit of causing chaos are just people who don't know how to do otherwise, and have simply given up trying and decided to roll with it.
Levy likes to swing for the fences, and she likes to scrap. On Monday, she went too far. And the more that others criticized her, the more a self-styled feisty shit disturber felt compelled to respond. Once that kind of downward spiral starts on Twitter, where there are no editors, producers and call screeners to save her, it's always going to end badly. Some people just don't know when to retreat and live to fight another day.
Levy's not alone in this. There are plenty of people out there who aren't any better at taking criticism without going all full-counter-value strike back at the source. But the smartest of them don't put themselves in a position where they can publicly embarrass themselves. To the feisty hotheads of the world, I offer you the Levy Lesson for Social Media: Unless you have a Twitter editor, maybe you're better off just deleting your account. It won't make you less provocative at your day job, and you'll still be able to believe all the crazy conspiracy theories you want. But it'll make your life a bit easier.
National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com
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Source: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-the-sue-ann-levy-lesson-of-how-not-to-use-social-media