My thoughts tonight come on the heels of a tragic set of circumstances that had a horrific ending. The CNN headline reads, “Police: Victims inside burned Indiana house had been shot.” It’s a story about Amanda Bennett, a 30 year-old mother from Austin, IN (about 4 miles south of the Ville), and her 3 children, (Jasmine, Katelynn and Ryan) who were found dead in their home. I don’t know anything about the details of the case or investigation — if you want to know more about that, you’ll need to read the news right along with me. What’s on my mind are the circumstances leading up to the end, and how anonymous really isn’t what you think it might be.
As the owner of Crothersville.net, a once popular community forum (pre-Facebook), I cringed when I read the CNN article state: Police are looking at an internet posting on the “Crothersville Forum,” referring to a town near Austin, that mentions the late Amanda Bennett’s husband by name. Two posts, both under the heading “Gone Forever,” were published online Friday and contained urgent, heated language.
CNN didn’t provide a link to the postings, but after some quick checking, I found they weren’t posted on the Ville’s community forum, but on TOPIX.
To the left is a screenshot of what I assume are the postings mentioned in the article. The thing is, the posts that relate to the circumstances began on January 9th and total about 550 comments.
Many of the comments are rude, crude, cruel, degrading and nasty. Very few posters use their real names, but instead choose to be called ‘Corn fed’, ‘just wonderin’, ’employee’, ‘that bitch be lying’, and ‘my bag is nappy’ (along with dozens of other names, those are just the ones I remember).
But here’s the deal people…do you really think investigators aren’t going to obtain log files and KNOW who contributed comments? OF COURSE THEY WILL.
Do I think this tragedy is the consequence of merely what was said on TOPIX? OF COURSE I DON’T.
Still, if I left a mean comment with a fake name, I would worry if what I said contributed to the outcome. I would be sick. Wouldn’t you?
I want to leave you with one fact, and an extremely simple suggestion:
- FACT: You are NOT anonymous online. You may think you are, but you are not. When you type, type, type behind your computer screen and call yourself a name your mamma didn’t give you, you don’t become that person. You’re still who you are, and you can be traced.
- SUGGESTION: If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all. Weren’t you taught that as a kid? It’s a pretty darned good rule to follow, (thanks Mom — and Thumper), and it will keep you out of more trouble than you can even imagine. Follow that rule and you’ll never have to worry that your words hurt people you don’t even know. Follow that rule online and in real life — anonymous or face to face.
You never know who you might hurt if you disregard this simple guideline — it could very well be someone that has nothing whatsoever to do with the one you’re really trying to damage. And remember, you’re not as anonymous as you might think.
