Yup, but sadly it's not just Twitter. It can be any Internet forum, website or comments page... even these beloved boards. The Internet in general is one of the biggest, sharpest double-edged sword that's ever been. Probably the biggest.
This. What Arsenal did was innocuous. Those complaining need to think about the implications of their complaints: are they really prepared to say that no one with millions of followers should respond to the comments of someone with comparatively few followers?
Exactly I believe in chat shit, get banged. What Arsenal did wasn't but even a bang. The journalist wrote an article that was in effect trolling. Why can't corporate social media accounts clap back? I am not saying hurl abuse, and no one should do that, but s gentle reply ain't shit. I said it before, journalists are the last people on earth who believe they are above consequences on social media.
Again I think you are missing the point slightly. Arsenal's tweet was classy trolling agreed. And I agree sports journos troll in their columns - its been the key way to get clicks for 10 years The question is whether a corporate with millions of followers should troll an individual - a question of social responsibility Especially as regards minorities and women who get death threats and rape threats We just saw something similar where the telegraph trolled some pols and caused them to get death threats IMO there does have to be some restraint exercised by corporates in targeting individuals.
It's about social responsibility I am not saying I know where the line should be drawn, but where a corporate account causes an individual to suffer a barrage of antisemitic abuse IMO somethings gone wrong. What for example would be your opinion if Arsenal trolled a female sports presenter and she then got 10 rape threats? Is that somehow OK because she said she thought arsenal weren't good at football?
I should add I doubt Arsenal's social team anticipated this. It was a cool piece of trolling ruined by idiots. But I think it shows why big corporate accounts have to be careful.
In tort law (at least in the US and UK), one party generally isn't responsible for the intervening bad acts of others, even if that party did something wrong. All Arsenal did was make a snarky response to a stupid post.
Let's recap media practice in the UK Whether corporate, political, sports or whatever, if you get bad media, you can vent about it, but there is an unwritten understanding that you don't target the individual journo. You play the ball not the man. e.g. When May gets called Maybot by the guardian, she doesn't go on national TV and attack the individual journo. Normally that also extends to not attacking the specific publication. Now of course when Jose slags off Jamie Redknapp, I don't give a toss. He's just part of the entertainment anyway. A WWF style feud. But IMO there is a slippy slope here - see Trump at the far end. This is why I am in favour of keeping that general rule that Journalists are not individually targeted for their coverage Now I know that the Daily Mail are scum. But I also believe corporates do have a social responsibility not to attack individual journalists - even if intended in good fun. Because what comes next is a manager slagging off a journo to worldwide audience in a cruel self serving way. let's just not go there.
Fair enough, but what Arsenal did doesn't really count as "targeting." It was a silly reply. United did something similar with some guy last year about Zlatan.