Stand against racism and hate and, whatever you do, don’t feed the trolls

We do have a problem with racism and not a lot of people want to do anything about it. But by doing nothing, you’re allowing it to happen.

Those were the concluding words of local mother, Aneta Safiak, in an exclusive interview published in last week’s Longford Leader.

The article received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback and support on social media, with some negativity directed not only at Aneta, as the interviewee, but at this newspaper and at me, as the journalist who dared to highlight the ugliness of the abuse that she has gone through since the day she stuck her head above the parapet to defend her son from a racist agenda.

The reaction in the Twitter-sphere was truly fascinating to watch.

In the space of 24 hours, I was called a “liar” with “radical followers” intent on launching a “hate campaign” against a specific far-right extremist.

A “deadly virus” was wished on me. One user even went as far as to ask me whether or not I had voted against repealing the eighth amendment. And that person didn’t just tweet my account - they retweeted one of my previous tweets to share it with their own followers, presumably with the intention of getting others to attack me for my views on a specific topic which, funnily enough, were not shared on Twitter in the first place.

That was all in the space of 24 hours and the only reaction I gave was the occasional raised eyebrow before I went back to whatever it was I was doing at the time, and the trolls eventually stopped trolling.

If you have nothing nice to say, then you should say nothing at all. That’s a lesson we all learned as kids, back when confrontations generally happened in person so you either watched your mouth or you stood over whatever you said.

Nowadays, it’s so easy to just switch off the filter, hide behind your keyboard and an anonymous account and give that person who posted something you dislike hell for having a different opinion. And that happens a lot.

In fact, of all the negative comments on Twitter last week, not one of them was from a person with a real name or a real face.

That says a lot about the internet today.

The thing about the news is everything eventually blows over and people move on and, while the retweets and likes are still coming in, none of those notifications are currently negative and the “liar” journalist with her “radical followers” is old news now.

But imagine receiving those kinds of comments over a 17-month period. Imagine the online abuse moving offline, while you’re visiting the grave of a loved one. Imagine the abuse moving to your own home - the one place you’re supposed to feel safe.

Racism and hate crime is far more common in Longford than you might think. And if you do nothing, you’re allowing it to happen.

It’s time we looked out for each other and stood by those members of our community who are being tormented for something as simple as their nationality, no matter how kind or hardworking they are.

Stand up to racism. Stand against cyberbullying. And, whatever you do, don’t feed the trolls.