{"id":59215,"date":"2014-07-24T13:09:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T12:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=59215"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:39:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:39:17","slug":"padraig-reidy-well-meaning-retweet-can-harm-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=59215","title":{"rendered":"Padraig Reidy: How your well-meaning retweet can do more harm than good"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Photo: Shutterstock)<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week, the social web, at one end of its endless, pendulum-like swings between mawkishness and self-righteous fury, discovered a letter from the head teacher at Barrowford primary school, East Lancashire. It was a sweet-natured letter, congratulating students on their exam results and then going on to note all the things exams can\u2019t measure and examiners don\u2019t know:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do.<\/p>\n

“They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day.\u201d<\/p>\n

…and so on; examiners did not that \u201cknow that you have travelled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story \u201d etc etc etc.<\/p>\n

All very sweet sentiments, and new and traditional outlets went crazy for it. The letter went viral, and then the mainstream media, including BBC Radio 4\u2019s The Today Programme, covered the fact the letter had gone viral.<\/p>\n

There were a few problems with the well-meaning letter, though. As Toby Young pointed out in the Telegraph, it was incorrect to say the people who \u201cscored\u201d the children\u2019s Key Stage 2 achievements \u201cdo not know each of you the way your teachers do\u201d; part of the assessment is done by teachers at the schools.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, children in East Lancashire do not, generally, go to \u201creally neat\u201d places. American kids go to \u201creally neat\u201d places. Barrowford kids might, say, get taken to Turf Moor to see a Burnley match, or more likely at this time of year, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, and it would be proper good.<\/p>\n

The reason for these disparities was simple: large sections of the letter had been lifted from elsewhere; apparently, it\u2019s been circulating in various forms since originally being written by a Mary Ginley of Massachusetts in 1999.<\/p>\n

When various people (including me) pointed this out on Twitter, they were seen as being somewhere between the Grinch and ISIS in terms of spoilsport misanthropy. \u201cSo what if it wasn\u2019t original?\u201d we were told. The sentiment was correct, and that\u2019s what was important.<\/p>\n

It may seem unduly curmudgeonly to complain about a rural school\u2019s end of term letter, but the point of interest here is how quickly it spread, and how blase people have been about the basics of who actually wrote it.<\/p>\n

Consider another example: after Algeria went out of the World Cup, it was widely rumoured on Facebook, Twitter and other networks that the team had donated its fee for the tournament to \u201cGaza\u201d; not the ICRC or MSF, or even Hamas, just vague \u201cGaza\u201d.<\/p>\n

It felt good, and it felt nice, and it was plainly not true. But no one really cared whether it was true or not because (a) Algeria had been quite an enjoyable team to watch, b) people wanted to think someone was doing something about Gaza, and c) well, the Algerian team were Muslims, so they\u2019re probably concerned about Palestine (I never said this was a well-thought out view).<\/p>\n

This pattern was repeated when German Muslim player Mesut Ozil was similarly reported to have donated his fee to \u201cGaza\u201d after his team\u2019s eventual World Cup triumph. The news spread like wildfire, because people wanted it to be true. It wasn\u2019t. Ozil had already pledged his cash to projects in Brazil.<\/p>\n

The Gaza conflict has provided more of these moments: a\u00a0picture<\/a> of thousands of Orthodox Jewish men protesting in New York is widely touted as a pro-Palestine protest; it is not. It is taken from a protest against Israeli conscription laws in March; a meme circulates quoting actor Robert De Niro comparing<\/a> Israel to a mad dog; there is no evidence that he has ever said this.<\/p>\n

New York thousands of Jews protest for Palestine! My brothers #FreePalestine<\/a> #GazaUnderAttack<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/XybDAMdJOJ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Leyla Adan (@miz_laila) July 21, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n