Speak your mind.

It is something we love to do, and take for granted that we are allowed to "see it, and say it", and to a large degree, we manage to do it successfully every day. Simple opinions on lunch, to passionate opinions on other much bigger matters.

One thing I have learned is, the ability to do this will depend entirely on the platform you choose to use. While there are many to choose from, Twitter and Facebook have always been my favourites. Open to the world, very limited censorship, and it is a way of just putting a thought out there. Much as I do on this blog too, although the blog has a much smaller audience most of the time.

The further away from public forums (in general) I get, the more I realise, that while interaction on them is higher, it is often overly personal, rather then focusing on the matter at hand. User accounts and profiles give people some sort of belief that they know you or understand you. Some will even go as far as to profile you and decide what the hidden message within the post was. Impossible to believe that something can be as simple as WYSIWYG.

Having run forums for almost two decades now, this is really nothing new to me.

Freedom of speech is a great thing, but also something which is hard to keep a grasp on, after all, as soon as you lay hands on it, the freedom part is somehow lost. Be it a simple change of wording, right through to complete censorship, any interaction or intervention is damaging to the flow.
A social platform is there, like soap boxes are in Hyde Park Corner. Jump up, have your say, duck from the rotten tomatoes being thrown at you from the disapproving, and move on. Agree or disagree, my opinion is my own.
Of course there is room for response, and once I step down from the box, I will happily stand and entertain any rebuttal offered from any opposing people.

What is not on, is sadly something we see far too much of, from a place where examples of how to conduct yourself should be coming from. MP's and Parliament. Shouting, jeering, talking over someone until they can't be heard anymore, then snorting and laughing at their success in shouting you down. In short, shouting people down, talking over them, or removing their ability to have their say, purely because you disagree with opinion is NOT freedom of speech.

With Twitter, I can say things which completely go against the grain of the conversation. Not to be disruptive, but because it is what I feel on any matter at hand. I will of course receive replies from people. But the key here is, they will be uncensored replies, much as my comment was. Name calling, go for it, I don't know you. As long as you are are expressing yourself in an honest fashion, say what you feel you need to. We are all different, and some people will be more aggressive and use more profanity than others, but as long as the message within is clear. All good.

Of course, there is one big thing in this freedom of speech thing...  Commitment. Being committed and standing by your comments is the key. If you feel you might regret saying it, or are worried that someone else will judge you in an unwanted way, based on what you say, don't say it in the first place. You can't take back the spoken or printed word, so why should digital media be any different?
If you have the balls to say something, leave it there. Be proud of your conviction, stand up for what you believe in, and stay standing.

All too often now, things are said in the public domain, threats, anger, statements of questionable fact. If you were wrong, just say "hey, I was wrong". Don't go hiding things and pretending they never happened. That just screams opportunistic bully. You can't go having a spat with someone because what they say doesn't fit with your belief system, or because the right things were not said, then when all is said and done, delete everything you said. That just screams pathetic.

If you search me on the internet, you will see over the years I have said many things, some of which I was completely wrong on, and I have gone on to say just that. However, the original content remains. Complete with any comments made on it by people (so long as they have not deleted them themselves). I just don't see the point in going to all the trouble of screaming and shouting, looking for attention and demanding an audience, only to then hide it all away again. That just tells me that you are a little embarrassed about what you have said to someone, and you are worried that people will realise what kind of person you are. God forbid they know the truth. But hey, maybe they might like and respect you more for being so passionate about something.

Being passionate about something is being willing to debate, discuss, and share a platform, not dominate, control and censor the other person, or remove content you feel is not in keeping with peoples perceptions of you.

This is all to common all across social media these days. "Tweet Not Available" appearing on content, where the person is being called out on their comments, but has chosen to hide what they said, rather than be called into question about it.
This sort of use of social media, and other media platforms is "drive-by" . Not gonna stop, not going to risk getting into a discussion, just simply going to drive by and spray my words from the window, then run!