In recent weeks, we saw several truly scandalous incidents on Twitter, two of them being Bisbal’s “the pyramids of Egypt” and Vigalondo‘s, regarding the Holocaust comment.
Bisbal, in an attempt to highlight his concern about the conflict in the Arab world, specifically with Egypt, made a most unfortunate comment on Twitter “The pyramids of Egypt have never been so deserted; hopefully, the revolt will end soon“. Immediately, his followers began to criticize this comment, and he eventually had to retract it, but with a rather ill-tempered response:
“Insults are all you have left, well, and a lot of free time too”
Vigalondo’s case concerns the Holocaust; his tweet was as follows: “Now that I have over fifty thousand followers and have had four glasses of wine, I can deliver my message: The Holocaust was a setup!”… the consequences were disastrous, although he retracted it and explained in detail that he was neither antisemitic nor intended to offend anyone. He had to issue an official statement on his blog, in which he announced his departure as a contributor to El País.
Once again, we realize the importance of considering what we publish, choosing carefully when to set boundaries, and above all, being aware of who reads us and what our profession entails.
Obviously, there’s a part of common sense, another of differentiation between sympathy, humor, and sarcasm… and sometimes a good dose of not recognizing where we are publishing it, and sometimes even unfamiliarity with the medium and its code.