A few days ago I wrote a tweet in which I claimed that Twitter had died along with Amy Winehouse. It appears that things are back to normal now, so maybe the social network du jour had simply passed out for a while. Now, it appears we are able to say what we want without fear of recrimination, but for a bit it was touch and go as to whether our own opinions would be allowed on there again as it seemed everybody had their own agenda to fulfil in the aftermath of Winehouse's death.
This isn't the first time freedom of speech was brought into question on Twitter. Who can forget Paul Chambers? He was the guy last year who threatened to blow up Robin Hood airport. He was charged with "sending a menacing electronic communication". On that occasion, everybody rallied together, and although he was completely unsuccessful in any attempts to get his conviction overturned, he had the power of thousands, even millions, of Twitter users behind him as the story became "us vs the evil freedom of speech threatening overlords".
This time though, we turned on each other. There were two camps on my timeline. One was those with the "she deserved it"/"let's joke about it" slant. Now, I don't think she deserved it for one moment. Yes, she made some stupid decisions, and whilst her passing was very sad, no-one can deny that it was the least unexpected celebrity death in a long time, but that's not a decleration for anyone "deserving" death. The jokes, on the other hand, I can understand. Whether you think it's correct to laugh at jokes about someone right after they pass, I think that humour can help people through a situation. Of course, it could just be a case of someone being a dick, but I like to think the people I choose to follow on Twiter could never be so crass.
On the other side of the fence, it was those who decided Amy Winehouse should be vigorously defended. Just one example of this was Aidan Moffat, of Arab Strap fame. He declared that "there's an inordinate amount of dicks making stupid comments about Amy Winehouse. Anyone who mentions the '27 club' needs a fucking slap." Now, because people are making negative comments about someone Mr. Moffat probably doesn't know, negative comments are being made about other people that Mr. Moffat probably doesn't know. And the 27 club is something surely noteworthy, in that it is a fact, a statistic which keeps rearing it's head. Maybe club isn't the best word for it, but does curse, or any other phrase make it sound any better?
I'm not now being hypocritical with a personal attack on Mr. Moffat here. That's not the point of this, and as I say, the above quoted tweet was just an example of many similar ones, but in the 24 hours following the death of Amy Winehouse, Twitter wasn't a very pleasant place to be.
Now I don't really have a problem with either of these camps- I understand both points of view equally and have no problem viewing either side of things. But what I don't understand is why people from the two camps follow each other? Twitter is what you make it, and it's your freedom of choice who to follow, and who not to follow. So if you disagree with something someone says, either unfollow them, or have enough respect to understand their point of view, and don't make it uneasy for those of us who follow both of you by having a barney. DM it to each other if you like, but don't make hypocrites of yourselves by trying to stop the freedom of speech that you so vigourously defended last year.
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