Social Media Manners

Today, I witnessed some exceedingly bad manners on a group Facebook post. It all started when a member posted a vague reference to President Obama. He said "Obama is a Keynesian". The post was intended to confuse and illicit angry responses. In case you don't know John Maynard Keynes was an economist. See this link for more:  http://www.maynardkeynes.org/ 

Now, the person who posted it knew that and some in the group also did, but, many responded as if the post had read, "Obama is a Kenyan". They accused the original poster of being a birther. He remained vague and confusing in his responses. When some called him out as being deliberately confusing, he continued to insist he merely wanted to engage in conversation on the subject. People continued to jump into the thread without reading prior posts. It quickly became a circus.

Now, I want to ask you this, "If you are at a gathering and you come upon some folks having a discussion, do you jump in a attack one of them?" "Wouldn't you listen for a bit trying to figure out the gist of the conversation?"

Of course, the original poster, having gotten the reaction he was seeking, simply left the conversation.

Was he a troll? I think so. But, what about the other good folks in the group that he tricked into attacking him and others who were trying to explain that the conversation was about economics, not birth place?

There really is such a thing as social media etiquette. There are some basic rules for how we interact on social media. In my opinion, it is worth taking a few minutes to read up on it and try to follow them.  See:  http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/work-life-etiquette/manners/social-media-etiquette

If you don't care for that one, there are many other sites you can Google. Let's all try to do a better job of communicating. After all, that's what social media is all about isn't it?