Appalling online attacks on lifeboat volunteers will not be tolerated
IT IS a sad reflection of the times we live in when it becomes necessary to moderate and restrict comments on a simple ‘lifeboat towing in stricken yacht’ story.
To our surprise – and horror, it has to be said – this is exactly what happened when trolls and far right commentators highjacked parts of our Facebook page earlier this week.
Following another lifeboat call-out on Wednesday afternoon, we will now restrict comments on RNLI stories to established Facebook followers. We also were required to do the same on a recent story on Scottish independence.
We don’t like to do that, but we feel it is our duty to protect local lifeboat volunteers, and the community at large, from the poison that is being spread here.
To be clear: the far-right abuse and intimidation of RNLI crews, most of them volunteers, in the south of England and elsewhere is appalling and needs to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
The RNLI was founded more than 200 years ago with the sole mission to save lives at sea. As a charity it takes no position on migration policy, and it should not be politicised.
As a seafaring community, the local lifeboat crews and everybody who works and volunteers for the coastguard have always enjoyed the strongest possible community support in Shetland.
It is encouraging to see local people challenging these online attempts to intimidate and divide communities. Perhaps we all should do this more often.
To that end we would like to ask a favour from our readers: Shetland News is a small local business. We work our socks off to produce fair, accurate and timely local news. But we are human and don’t operate 24/7, whereas the social media community is at it all the time.
Comments on our Facebook page are filtered automatically for swear words etc. But it’s not a perfect system, and while we regularly remove inappropriate, homophobic, misogynistic and other abusive comments, we simply don’t have the resources to watch it all the time.
So think about the choice of words you use when commenting on any story, and, please, report to us directly if you have found anything you feel is particularly offensive.
This can easily be done by messaging us directly on Facebook or via e-mail to news@shetnews.co.uk. Many of you do this already.
And if you always wanted to support independent local journalism with no clickbait, here is your chance.
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