Illustrative image.

I was reading posts on Quora the other day and am very shocked to find that many of the responders to the questions posed are either very arrogant, very sarcastic or just rude. Many people have asked why so many of the respondents on this particular forum are rude and unpleasant. I’m not really a fan of most of these forums because they seem to give people a chance to be keyboard warriors. They can post anonymously and that gives them the encouragement to be insulting and mean.

Some weeks ago, a lady in her 70s posted a painting on a Facebook group. I had noticed after joining that people responding to the works were rude and insulting and not critiquing. After this 70-year-old lady posted her artwork one man instantly jumped in and demanded that admin remove her post immediately. He accused her of deception by using AI to create her work. He called her a cheat and a liar. The poor lady made another post several days later in which she had to explain that her eyesight was failing and only used AI help in outlining a teeny tiny portion of the painting because she could not see it. She had to assure everyone that she does not cheat and never uses AI or digital apps to help her create her artwork. I felt so bad for her and supported her with my encouragement, for which she thanked me. But I did leave the group.

I was also subjected to something on another Facebook group. I used to be a member of this society back in 1994 in the UK when it was a fledgling. I’d never ever had reason to be upset with the group or its members until about 2 weeks ago. I made a post about how I accidentally deleted a video on YouTube thus losing my views, how upset I was and how I cried. Shortly after posting I had 4 members laugh at me and 2 give extremely sarcastic comments. When I went to respond to one lady, who was very supportive, I could not. My post had been quickly removed even though it broke none of the group’s rules or any Facebook rules but it was blindly removed because 2 or more people wanted to be mean and reported it.

I was more upset, and the next day I wrote to the admin and then decided to make another post expressing my disappointment at the group and its members. I told them exactly what had happened the day before and the sort of comments and reactions I got. I was amazed at the responses I received this time, 99% of which were supportive, and I got an apology from one of the admin. However, I still got a few keyboard warriors with their sarcastic comments.  But I won’t be posting anymore videos or paintings in that group because I have a bad taste in my mouth now. I’m sad to say that the group was never like that.

In one Facebook post for girls, a girl posted someone’s licence number because her friend spotted a man she liked getting into a car. She wanted to know who he was and asked the group members to track down the car. The post received over 50 comments, not one saying it was wrong. In fact, most of the ladies commenting were excited, offering suggestions and egging her on, saying let me know what happens. Where were the admin? I responded saying I was shocked at admin for permitting this post, which was clearly wrong, whereas they were more than happy to decline mine that merely had links to my YouTube channel.

These forums and groups tend to encourage this type of behaviour. There are group rules that you are supposed to read and agree to before an admin can accept you. But a lot of the time the rules are flouted by members and admin seem to be asleep or use their discretion to determine what is or isn’t published. That post was eventually removed but it seems that it was removed after my comment about how wrong it was.