Two very interesting articles were published over the weekend, analysing the implications of the recent Twitter-based protests against Jan Moir’s criticism of Stephen Gately’s lifestyle; Andrew Neil’s allegedly racist insult of Diane Abbot (when he described her as a chocolate hobnob, in an extended riff on people as biscuits); a typically close-to-the bone gag by Jimmy Carr and AA Gill’s tales of killing a baboon. In each case, in the words of Jon Henley in The Guardian, “a liberal rent a mob (were) hell bent on hanging out to dry those who express an opinion that differs from their own.” This theme was echoed by Nick Cohen in yesterday’s Observer, who described how “A mob fighting a good cause is still a mob.”
Twitter is an undeniably powerful tool for whipping-up instant storms of protest, but the Twitterati are far from being a representative sample of the population – in fact Twitter is in danger of becoming a mouthpiece for the type of pseudo-liberal intollerance that only grants free speech to those who’s opinions concur with the Twitter herd. Just because something starts trending on Twitter, it doesn’t automatically make a particular cause either right or important. As we have repeated on countless occasions in our book and in subsequent blogs, the crowd (in whatever form – mob with pitchforks, hashtag-wielding Twitter group) is not always wise.