Selby White wrote:Sadly social media provides the opportunity for the morons to have their warped say.
It's basically same as the people who become bully's in the fact they only do it when the victim can't fight back. In this instance hide behind a keyboard.
None would say anything to the players face.
Cant call themselves fans because actions like this must be detrimental to performance.
Encouragement not abuse is the way to get the best out of everyone, always has been.
This just about sums it up - I'm an old git now so not into social media in any way shape or form - Totally agree with your comments
I've passed 'negative' comments on this site about Roberts from time to time - But tried to support comments with additional info - So you can't just say 'he is crap' - You can say he had a poor game with little/no end product etc and I don't see such comments as abuse as per those directed towards Klich's last weekend - To be fair to TR, his contribution to recent games has moved up a level or so - Effort and enthusiasm is fine, but you need an end product as well and he has become a valuable member of the team recently - As someone else posted under the v Chelsea game, 'fans' obviously forgot the key role that Klich had in Joe's goal
Scott wrote:As I mentioned on the match thread, I do think the medium is the big issue in this case. Twitter seems to drive people to insanity when it comes to football. On here, we have a varying degree of positive and negative outlooks, but even those who bemoan players' performance do it in a way that's largely respectful. Twitter just doesn't have that filter. It's a cesspit in football terms, because people only have two modes - absolute unadulterated joy and complete hatred. We could valiantly lose a game 1 - 0 to 1970 Brazil and people on there would paint it like we'd just been slapped around by some Conference no-marks. When you couple that with the anonymity of hiding behind a Twitter account, people just lose the plot and go far too far.
Directly tweeting at players and giving them dog's abuse just isn't on. These players are a big part of our recent history, and even if they aren't playing at their best, they don't need nor deserve to have this sort of tripe directed at them. It's a shame that the actions of what is a large number of people on Twitter means players feel like they can't use social media. I'd ban them from the ground, but I suspect a lot of them probably don't have any intention of going to a match anyway. They just revel in the negativity and bile they spew.
When you retire, you switch bosses - from the one that hired you, to the one that married you.
Davycc wrote:Yep, name shame and ban them. Boils my blood.
Many of them have been identified by ‘real fans’.
I’ve no sympathy with the abusers, of course, but I dread to think what they have received back from the true fans in their DM’s etc. I did see someone had tracked down details of one of the abusers, and actually published the details of his local pub where he drinks
When you retire, you switch bosses - from the one that hired you, to the one that married you.
Davycc wrote:Yep, name shame and ban them. Boils my blood.
Many of them have been identified by ‘real fans’.
I’ve no sympathy with the abusers, of course, but I dread to think what they have received back from the true fans in their DM’s etc. I did see someone had tracked down details of one of the abusers, and actually published the details of his local pub where he drinks
Again, going too far. But if you are prepared to have a go at someone at least have the courage to do it and put your real name to it.
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The problem is bigger than Leeds, bigger than football, bigger than sport, it's a society-wide issue. Twitter and to a lesser extent other social media have created a new psychology of social interaction with 'celebrities' and other strangers, and football just happens to be the clearest example of abuse. Until big tech are regulated into human-led rather than algorithmic approaches to policing online abuse, and stronger identification controls, the problem isn't going anywhere. It messed with a Presidential election in the biggest economy in the world, for Pete's sake.
I'd also argue that we need to stop creating a false divide between fans and non-fans. Those abusing players are still fans, they're just also indefensible p****s. We have our fair share of them, and they should be identified, called out, and where necessary punished, but I think it's more useful to identify them as Leeds fans and convince them that they're undermining the chances of achieving everything they (and we) want, than to paint them as nothing to do with the club. It's the classic argument of 'calling out' (which makes people defensive and reinforces their behaviour) and 'calling in' (which encourages people to reflect on themselves and change the way they do things).
To be clear, this is in no way defending anybody guilty of abusing or threatening players, staff other fans, or anybody else, online or in the real world.
'When he plays on snow, he doesn't leave any footprints’
Leonickroberts wrote:The problem is bigger than Leeds, bigger than football, bigger than sport, it's a society-wide issue. Twitter and to a lesser extent other social media have created a new psychology of social interaction with 'celebrities' and other strangers, and football just happens to be the clearest example of abuse. Until big tech are regulated into human-led rather than algorithmic approaches to policing online abuse, and stronger identification controls, the problem isn't going anywhere. It messed with a Presidential election in the biggest economy in the world, for Pete's sake.
I'd also argue that we need to stop creating a false divide between fans and non-fans. Those abusing players are still fans, they're just also indefensible p****s. We have our fair share of them, and they should be identified, called out, and where necessary punished, but I think it's more useful to identify them as Leeds fans and convince them that they're undermining the chances of achieving everything they (and we) want, than to paint them as nothing to do with the club. It's the classic argument of 'calling out' (which makes people defensive and reinforces their behaviour) and 'calling in' (which encourages people to reflect on themselves and change the way they do things).
To be clear, this is in no way defending anybody guilty of abusing or threatening players, staff other fans, or anybody else, online or in the real world.
That's a very sensible post and I agree with you on all points.
History won't be kind to this period when we have seen the proliferation of social media and it's impact on psychology is much more far reaching than I think many realise. It's the impact on developmental psychology and our children and childrens children I am most concerned about. Some regulation is definitely required, our standards about what we accept online should be the same as what we'd accept in person, and they're currently not the same.
