I’m big on ‘community’, or so I’d like to think.
I remember fondly street parties, one of my first memories is of the 1977 Silver Jubilee, 1977, as we ran amok down Netherwood Close in Hastings, with the mums all bringing out their home baked finest: there was even jelly, ice cream and I remember some flash bugger with a bucket full of Angel Delight, when it was the crème da la crème of desserts.
Sadly, such community events have now, due to varying factors, become as rare as rocking horse excreta.
And so, like the kids, us adults retreat online to practice community cohesion which, for me, involved setting up a village ‘uncensored’ Facebook group.
To be honest, this was not out of a sense of civic duty, but more because a previous village group’s admin was something of a terror: banishing all and sundry who dared disagree with his tunnel vision. far left decrees on all matters local, and national.
Thankfully the group took off, on a micro scale, and I now, a few years later, have half the village as members which really should be a thing of community beauty.
For me as admin, it can be a busman’s holiday as I spend my downtime like a poor man’s Kofi Anan mediating between warring factions over some utterance or perceived slight.
The number of adverts is a huge issue as members don’t know their limits.
One individual was posting the same thing 20 times a day and I then had to put on post approval. Has this calmed them down? Absolutely not, and yours truly now has to decline or approve their request those score times daily.
There are a couple of mainstay ‘reporters’ of posts, who claim ‘hate speech’ should anyone write anything that differs from their views.
This is then followed up with private messages to me questioning why I am ‘pro-hate speech’ and a long-drawn-out discussion as to what constitutes hate rumbles on for days and weeks, privately, as the other side of the argument also messages me and I lose the virtual will to live.
But will I give it up? Absolutely not.
I enjoy most of the banter and joshing and it is only a small minority who create havoc for yours truly, and I will just have to learn to live with it.
That said, I may do a name change and call it ‘somewhat uncensored’ to save myself from dealing with the same culprits who will likely only leave the village in a box and will therefore spend the next few decades giving me merry online community hell.
- Brett Ellis is a teacher.
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