A Word About Conversation and Cyber-Bullies

Given the activity of a recent open blog I wrote, I wanted to assure the congregation that I am absolutely ok with the comments given.  There's a difference between conversation and cyber-bullying; the former I love, the latter I ignore.  A conversation allows for disagreement and ongoing dialogue.  While there might be some hard feelings in conversation, the intent is not in harm but rather in getting a point across.

Cyber-bullying is something different.  Cyber-bullying often is quickly dismissive, trying to end dialogue before it can even begin.  Often, it doesn't allow someone to voice an opinion that is different than the one doing the cyber-bullying.  Cyber-bullies usually use pseudonyms, and can have several accounts, acting like different people when it really is one person under several screen names.  Cyber-bullies often threaten with suing, defamation of character, and unlawful censorship to intimidate the other side into silence and inactivity.  Also, cyber-bullies have a great way of distorting the conversation; for example, if someone commented, "Pastor Kevin has done a lot of research on this topic and I really appreciate and agree with what he says", a cyber-bully might ask, "And I haven't done my homework too?" taking the complement comment that really has nothing to do with the cyber-bully and making it an insult.  Lastly, cyber-bullies love sarcasm, a style of writing that is not easy to pick up on through the internet, especially in one sentence comments.

Personally, I don't trust cyber-bullies, not only because I really don't care what they have to say, but also because they are fake personae.  The real person/people behind the screen name(s) can be radically different people than the personae, and according to some experts, these people often are insecure in real life so they lash out on the internet--the only place they feel they can.  They look to promote anger, and quite frankly, life is too short to allow them to anger me.

When responding to a post, I always ask: does this contribute to the conversation?  If so, I will probably respond.  However, I also ask a second question: does this end the conversation?  If so, it's probably not a good idea to post, as more than most, this may call into question someone's character.  I also usually don't try to respond more than once to any specific person unless I feel the conversation is developing; if it's a cyber-bully, I make sure I respond only once, if even at all.  If someone is cyber-bullying, if you invite them to see you face-to-face (not something I recommend using unless you have a buddy you can be with during the meeting and even then, you should alert authorities of the meeting and your feelings about the person), they often will not take you on the offer, for whatever you put in writing they can use against you but anything verbal is not as highly prized (as spoken words often reflect perception over literalness).  They also won't want to meet because of their own insecurities, if the experts are correct.

Overall, please know, I do understand the full scope every time I post and I don't let it get to me, and you shouldn't let it get to you either.  Let people post what they want to post.  Learn from Jesus to turn the other cheek and show the love that you would like back... even if you know it won't come across/back that way.  If you worry about how your post might be interpreted, don't feel like you need to post, at least to my blogs.  My sites are more secure than Patchogue Patch and I can delete comments that are irrelevant to the conversation.  Interestingly enough, I feel the blog I posted on Patchogue Patch was highly successful as this post got the attention of the company who owns the site and I couldn't have hoped for better.

God's blessing to you all.