Thursday, February 24, 2022

Gatekeeping of Opinions in the Facebook Groups

Some people are extremely intolerant of differing opinions.  Just this week, I noticed two instances in the Facebook groups of people getting offended over someone's opinion and asking that the post or comment be deleted from the group.  If it's one of my groups, I'm not having that.  I'm not going to censor opinions.

I will say, before I continue, that I was put in a very difficult position after the Nancy Drew series began airing on The CW.  I allowed discussions in one group that I moderate.  The people who didn't like the show (actually just one person) made repetitive comments every single week about how much they hated the show.  They weren't even watching it!  I have gotten to the point where I just ignore everything this person says.  I'm able to do that.  It's kind of a superpower I have where I can just let my eyes skim over certain people's comments and not take in enough of the content to be annoyed.  I know who to tune out, and I do.

Other people have more trouble doing that.  I was in the middle of two factions.  There were the people who were extremely annoyed about the negative comments, and the people making the negative comments.  The people making the negative comments didn't want to be censored.  I do agree with that sentiment, but I also believe that people shouldn't be obnoxious.  So, I quite well understood the people who wanted the negative comments squelched.  It was tough having to navigate through that time.  I wrote about it in "Finding a Middle Ground to Discuss CW's Nancy Drew."

There has also been some conflict and gatekeeping this week concerning discussion of CW's Nancy Drew, but thankfully not in any group that I moderate.  In one of those groups, someone made a statement about Ace and his relationship with Nancy.  Paraphrasing, it was to the effect that Ace isn't good enough for Nancy and so they shouldn't be together.

Nace shippers became upset and wanted the comment removed because they considered it to be deeply offensive.  Other people were more rational, saying that there was nothing wrong with the comment and that it was an opinion.

Right!  I am not a Nace shipper, and their relationship does nothing for me.  I would prefer for them not to be together.  Don't get me wrong; I adore Ace.  I'm just not into the Nace thing at all.  I'd rather them just be good pals.  I am mostly staying away from the CW Nancy Drew forums because of all the fan art and sappiness about Nace. 

I keep my opinion about Nace very quiet on Facebook because the Nace shippers can't tolerate a different opinion.  I am resigned that Nancy and Ace will be together, but I was totally Team Agent Park during the third season. 

I was annoyed about that attempt at gatekeeping.  It is apparent that the Nace shippers do not believe that anyone has the right to say anything against Nace.  

I run a group about vintage teen books, like Sweet Valley High and others.  Someone posted about the book Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!  The book is not about what it sounds like, and I think we would have been better off if Dinky had used heroin.   

I haven’t read the book, but apparently Dinky Hocker is overweight and tries to help other overweight kids, possibly trying to force them to diet.  Something like that.

What happened is that somebody looked up the book and found out about the overweight characters.  They said that the book featured fat-shaming and bullying.  Someone else responded to that comment saying that social norms were different back in those days and that the book should be read with an open mind.  The first person then went off on the second person, calling them a "mansplaining male" and saying that they were trying to explain women and eating disorders.  The first person then reported the second person's comment to the mods. 

That was when I saw the comment thread.  I was annoyed that someone was wasting my time on a comment that did not need to be removed.  There is nothing wrong with someone saying that things were different years ago and that we have to keep that in mind.  That person is entitled to say what they want.  I instead thought that the "mansplaining" comment was the inappropriate one.  I thought about removing it.  I then decided that I didn't want my time wasted having to watch over the post.  I did not remove any comments, and I closed commenting. 

I wrote this as my reason:

Members - It's apparent that we aren't going to be able to continue discussing this post.  Someone reported a comment, which expressed an opinion.  Members do have a right to their opinion, even if you think they are wrong or even if they are actually wrong.  I will not censor comments when they express a member's opinion about a book.  Comments are now closed.

A few years back in another group, a member contacted me, telling me to tell another member to quit commenting on his posts.  Say what?  I'm not touching that.  Members have a right to comment on any post.  I suggested that this member block the other member.  Wouldn't that make sense?  I didn't need to be involved.

1 comment:

David Baumann said...

Thank you. A very well balanced and well-thought through post on a difficult topic. You don't get that kind of reasoned and intelligent consideration very often. I hope nobody complains about this comment.