My thoughts on Social Media and Cyberbullying

Good morning folks, please bear with me regarding my long, long post - I need to make my stance clear; pardon the bad grammar and mediocre sentence construction here.

I find it difficult in this age of social media that people will find ways to destroy someone because of beliefs or insults that run contrary to your own. Call it cyber harassment or cyber mob mentality.

As moderator of a couple of HR groups in Facebook, I've seen a lot of bickering among HR and non-HR folks. Part of my responsibility to ensure that there is order among the chaos of replies that follows a thread. Sometimes I do make stances that run contrary to what they recommend but mindful enough not to insult unless I get it first. And yes, I do the occasional "holier than thou" judgement stances if the situation calls for it.

It is one of those days that someone sends us a thread that condemn a co-moderator. True enough, this was not good but then I noticed that this does not make a whole story (bits and pieces were shown but not the whole bloody thread - making it twisted against the moderator in question). What made me so pissed was the accusation that we are blocking Managers from joining the group.

I took a long hibernation from the forum last year (to take a break to prepare for Sunlife Aquathlon (done and proud) and took time to relax from social media) so making that generalized statement really ... (fill in the blanks here). So the comment was over the top if not making it exaggerated to aggravate the situation.

My point? We take sides of the so-called underdogs without being mindful that there is another angle to be taken into consideration. Sharing bits and pieces instead of the whole story does not make it right - this is one sided if you ask me.

You are denying the person the chance to speak in defense of a story you are trying to spread in social media. We lack that maturity to listen because we sympathize immediately without even bothering to ask or read the whole story. Shoot first ask questions later is everyone's philosophy nowadays.

Reality is that we disagree a lot - and by respecting the other side makes you more mature. Take time to listen to the person before making any "holier than thou" stance. We always must agree to disagree.

Sorry for being verbose but I need to really say this upfront. I know that some will not be happy with what I said but I'd rather kill the bush now than think and stare (and kill it anyway).

(Rejoinder: This was originally posted in Facebook and LinkedIn. Since then, I have relinquished my moderator duty in two FB HR Group and went on FB hibernation, not because I am scared but more of I am not safe anymore in saying my opinion on HR matters).