CENSORSHIP is a dirty word within the republican movement, which is understandable given the muzzling of Sinn Féin during the era of Section 31 when its members were banned from the airwaves.
But surely the time has come for someone to have a word in Gerry Adams’ ear about his bizarre behaviour on Twitter, which reached its nadir last week when he dropped the ‘N-word’ bomb in a late night tweet.
As the story broke, I almost hoped that Gerry would fess up to having a few uisce beathas before retiring to the leaba with his beloved teddy bear (an internet sensation himself). Moreover, he could even have blamed Ted for sending the mischievous tweet behind his back, the fluffy little rascal.
But no, the Sinn Féin president dug himself deeper into a hole by trying to explain how his comments were misinterpreted and taken out of context. But that’s the problem, Gerry – a tweet comprising a maximum of 140 characters doesn’t allow for context.
Gerry Adams’ use of Twitter has been a source of mild embarrassment within his party, although no one seems to want to be the one to tell him. The more benign view is that it shows a lighter, cuddlier side to a man who played a controversial role during the Troubles and was a pivotal figure during the peace process.
But given his propensity to put his big digital footprint in it, I think it’s probably a good thing that Twitter wasn’t around at the time of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
In a way, Adams has done us all a favour by providing, yet again, a salutary lesson on the dangers of social media. And he’s certainly not alone. Big names across the worlds of sport, news, politics and entertainment have managed to offend with ill-advised tweets, sparking online feuds and public outrage.
The reality is, we’re all just one mouse click away from being branded a racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobe. And once it’s out there, you’re goosed. Deleting an offending tweet is ineffective once it has been seen (and screen-grabbed) by others.
Young people today don’t remember a time when social media didn’t exist. For all its benefits, the internet has become a parental minefield, exposing kids to pornography, violence and online bullying.
More needs to be done to promote acceptable behaviour on social media and perhaps our schools, with the backing of the State, could play a greater role here.
The best advice I ever heard about social media was this: never post anything online that you wouldn’t want displayed on a massive billboard poster outside your house. Some food for thought for Gerry Adams, perhaps.