I’m going to postpone writing about that not-so-big (or fat) Italo-Iranian wedding and the associated high drama. It’s Easter Sunday after all  and I am going with something a little more meaningful. So, to begin with, here’s a paraphrase of something I wrote for another publication last year.

“Recently I’ve become quite averse to the ‘like’ button on Facebook. And yet I suppose I’m as guilty as the next person. It’s like this: someone leaves a comment under your profile picture telling you how great you look, and you automatically click ‘like’. Three hundred people wish you a happy birthday: how on earth can you possibly not ‘like’ that? Someone announces he’s had a rotten day. What’s to like there? But a hundred people apparently do.  

“The ‘like’ button is a pretty blunt instrument but I’ve pressed it, against my better judgement, many times, even when I was underwhelmed. Facebook does that to you. Facebook has a way of turning you into someone you don’t particularly… like.  

“There are definitely times when liking a post can be dangerous. Someone shares an article you don’t like but it’s accompanied by a considered response which you happen to like. Do you still press ‘like’ and risk signalling your endorsement of the article? Do you run the gauntlet of misunderstanding (wilful or otherwise) and misquotation? In an age of screenshots, blogs and photoshop – and in such a close-knit community as ours – do you really want to go there?   

“There are posts and comments which leave no room for misinterpretation. When a person is attacked cruelly, there can be no excuses. To ‘like’ means then that you are endorsing every single word and tone.   

“Which is why I tread very carefully. Even if I’m 90 per cent in agreement, I simply won’t go there. And even if I agreed completely in principle, I’d still not ‘like’ a post if it was derogatory, mean or hurtful. I don’t believe in the public pillory.

“Of course, it’s straightforward enough dissociating oneself from attacks on one’s friends. But anyone – whether I know him or not, like him or loathe him – who is on the receiving end of a lambasting deserves the same restraint. That even goes for someone who has attacked me. I don’t believe in kangaroo courts.”  

That was the gist of what I wrote when responding then to the hostility and tension gripping Facebook in the run-up to the last general election. And my feeling was that, while many of the posted articles and blogs were bad enough, even more disturbing and offensive was the herd-like process of sharing and liking.   

The time has come for a systematic and principled examination of our private consciences…and indeed of the collective national conscience

So you can see why I’m very conscious (and judicious), not to mention selective, about what I like and share on Facebook.  And that’s not just because, as we keep finding out, even respectable media houses can get things wrong or because sharing and caring are two quite different things. There are other reasons. 

Just as silence is golden (and much more dignified), so truth doesn’t have to be shouted from the rooftops. If something is true, sharing it or liking it doesn’t make it ‘more true’; and if something isn’t true, the despicable act of sharing or liking is heinous and wounding. So I’d rather err on the side of caution.

Likewise, if I strongly disagree with an article, I won’t share or draw attention to it, whether it be to score points or to cause ridicule. My thinking here is that negative attention is still attention. And my understanding of freedom of expression is that you should let a person make his point without knocking it, let alone butting in to make yours.  

I have therefore a very strict no-share policy when it comes to blogs, posts or articles which are ad hominem and hurtful, even if they concern people I dislike or people who may have attacked me in the past. In fact, I am constantly amazed at how other people can join in this kind of public scrapping, especially on such a small island. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), most human beings are only capable of understanding how cruel and horrible something is when they – or people they know and love – are on the receiving end. But even that doesn’t stop them from dishing it out in retaliation. 

Jason Micallef’s St Patrick’s Day jibe – ‘The situation is desperate. There are happy people everywhere you look’ – was not the sort of post I’d ever like or share. And surely it’s easy enough to understand why. Would you like it if someone took a pot shot at your own mother, sister, aunt, wife, friend if she was lying in a coffin six feet under? Of course not. So, on that basis, I wouldn’t go there. Indeed nobody should…  

Similarly, posts calling someone a ‘bitch’, ‘a low-life’, ‘scum’  are a no-no, as is all sharing of blogs raking up people’s private lives and publishing details of their suicides, tumours  and personal affairs.  When something is wrong, it is always wrong, even if you happen to dislike the person targeted or disagree with his politics. 

Understandably enough, Micallef’s words were twisted, spun and wrenched out of context, and he was accused of saying that the people getting drunk on St Patrick’s Day were happy Daphne Caruana Galizia was dead. Not even I, with my fertile imagination, could conceive of something so far-fetched. Yet that is precisely the sort of thing you can expect when you put yourself out there – as Micallef did. Everything you say (and don’t say) will be held against you. So what did Micallef achieve in the end, other than notoriety?

People share hurtful posts for all sorts of reasons. The time has come for a systematic and principled examination of our private consciences... and indeed of the collective national conscience.  

A Happy Easter to my readers. 

michelaspiteri@gmail.com