I just wanted to explain something to Jan Moir and her colleagues at the Daily Mail about what happened today. They seem to think that the response to the article from Twitter, Facebook and the Blogosphere was a "heavily orchestrated internet campaign". They are wrong.
What happened today was a pretty spontaneous reaction to an unpleasent article, which fundamentally suggested that Stephen Gately died because he was gay. I've read your mea culpa Jan, such as it was, and I don't have the time or anger to point out how much of a piece of self-serving, arse-covering shit it actually is. It's rubbish Jan and you know it. You might not be homophobic but the article you wrote was. Now if you aren't homophobic and you wrote the article just for the cash then you are even more of a heartless individual that I thought you were.
Anyway back to the spontaneous reaction.
It might surprise Lord Dacre* that I don't read the Daily Mail so on a normal day I might have missed Jan's delightful verbal dump but one of the people I follow on Facebook pointed out the article. So I read it.
So disgusted was I that I posted my opinion on Twitter (and in a previous blog here). It was an instantaneous reaction based on pure fury. It wasn't heavily orchestred by anything except my own rage that someone could be so callous.
I also called M&S's press office and suggested that they might want to take a look at the article and decide whether they wanted their company name attached to it as that implied they supported Jan's unpleasent views about gay people.
I then suggested on Twitter that others might do something similar.
In the meantime lots of people were responding in the same way. Twitter allows you to instinctively respond to an issue. It might not always be the best response but it is how you feel in that moment and Jan's article upset a lot of people.
Once the ball is rolling of course Twitter updates and Facebook posts have a momentum of their own. People repeat and pass on ideas. Blogs are recommended. Sites are flagged up where information is kept that people don't want you to read. The process is pretty self-generating. It doesn't need to be orchestrated.
It just happens.
It happened today because a lot of people like me find spite, fear and innuedo unpleasent when it represents itself as truth. It happened earlier in the week with Carter-Ruck. It will happen again.
So Ms Moir and Lord Dacre there was no orchestration, which I know might help salve whatever passes for a conscience down at the Daily Mail. It was a genuine response to your unpleasentness and if you forget that or pretend it was something else then it'll come back and get you again...and again.
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