My Enemies Must Be Your Enemies

     Almost since I have begun using social networks, I have noticed a trend that seems, at least in my experienced, to be more pronounced online than in real life. I guess that this is because of the capacity to encounter so many people online than in "real life" and because it is much easier to get rid of unwanted people in our social networks than it is in person. That is what social networks provide the "Remove as Friend" and "Block" options. This trend I'm talking about is the disconcerting practice that many people have of making their online friendships conditional upon not being online friends with anyone whom a Facebook user does not like or considers suspicious.
     I remember some warring factions that were raging in the world of the missing, between a certain missing persons nonprofit and another, newer missing persons nonprofit. It was ugly and abusive, petty exchanges were frequently exchanged. The more established nonprofit has always enjoyed a sterling reputation in the world of the missing and are much loved and appreciated by grateful families who are served, or have been served, by this nonprofit. But there was abn ugly faction between this nonprofit and a newer one and I would see a number of posts about how those affiliated with the newer nonprofit were phonies, bullies, and scammers. The CEO of this organization once posted about this nonprofit, naming the names of these individuals and then said, "If anyone has any of thse jokers in your networks, please remove me from your networks." Now, I do not know the facts about any of thse factions so I will not take any sides. I do know that this person was not the only one who was part of this tend of practically telling people who to hang out with in their social networks and who to not hang out with.
     That was minor compared to the factions that broke out when this controversial group, Action for Justice (AXJ), sprung on the scene when I was new to social networks. People affiliated with this nonprofit added me as friends and then kept telling me to make their "AXJ" logo my profile photo. At the time, I did not know how to upload photos nor did I have any idea of what AXJ stood for or what they were all about. All I knew was that soon, people in my network were coming out and telling others to remove these AXJ people, all of them, out of their networks, to remain Facebook friends. I frankly did not know what all the fuss was all about. It came out that the CEO of the nonprofit, John Aster, was convicted of child pornography and that he was very controlling of his supporters, who had to do his bidding to stay "with him." I was seeing people on my page come out with posts like, "Do you have anyone with the AXJ logo in your network? Delete them. If you keep any of them, I will remove you from my friends list." Since some of the people who were threatening other users with such deletion seemed like good people and I did not want to lose them, I did my utmost to remove all those who were affiliated with AXJ, from my friends list. They were not showing any support for the causes I was promoting then, anyway. The threats to delete anyone who had AXJ profiles in their networks, contined for awhile before subsiding. Apparently, they were being held accountable for the crimes that they were charged with.
     There has been a certain Facebook user who has made it a practice to police this person's friends lists and to "purge" from it anyone that this user counted as hindering this person's passion and cause. I remember that one of the first times that this user issued an ultimatum to delete people was when the AXJ controversy was raging, but this person also undertook another "Facebook friends purge" when this user read an article about the criminal activity about the ex-spouse of a person in this user's friends list. The Facebook user threatened to remove from this person's friends list anyone who kept in their social networks the woman whose ex-spouse was convicted of criminal activity. I thought this Facebook user was being capricious and unfair to that woman and to all other Facebook users who wanted to keep her in their networks. More than once, this person has removed me from this person's friends list because I kept in my networks this user's "enemies." And most recently, this same person has issued an ultimatum, telling everyone who affiliated with a certain nonprofit, to leave her page.
     On the very flip side of all this, I have had a terrible experience with a certain nonprofit and I have already written about this experience at length in my blog called, "Scams." To summarize my experience, two years ago, I signed up to volunteer with a nonprofit which enjoys respect and the trust of many in the world of the missing and crime victims. A few people who were then volunteers with this nonprofit, took a special interest in me and I was taken in by their show of interest and I began to share wth them. One of them even named me as her "Sister" on her profile. Since I lacked a sense of belonging and I yearned to belong to something, I willingly applied to volunteer. I should have seen it as a "red flag" when they requested my Social Security Number but they said that they only did criminal background checks when their Google searches on applicants turned up suspicious information. That evening that I learned that I was accepted, I went to work on a second profile (on my husband's computer) for the nonprofit and soon, it got hacked, probably because a certain familly member was over that evening and had been using my computer and had downloaded an unsafe website. The nonprofit was not happy that I could not get to work right away and were pressuring our family to let an out-of-town computer repair person (whom we could not afford) work on the computer from his. I will not go into the ugly conflict that resulted between my husband and this nonprofit, but it resulted in their dismissing me as a volunteer. That was bad enough, but what was worse was when everyone affiliated with this nonprofit was asked to remove me from their official pages. Some went beyond that and also blocked me completely. The point here? There are many in my social networks who remain loyal supporters of this nonprofit and would never have ANY idea that they could or would, engage in what to me is cyberbullying or at least is very close to it! For, to have everyone sever ties with me, bad-mouthing had to have gone on. I will never know what was said about me, or about my spouse, but it was apparently bad enough for their volunteers and staff members to end their communication with me. But have I ever publicly named this nonprofit or threatened to unfriend anyone who supported them? Never. I have often been tempted to "name them and shame them," but I know that this would open me wide to a libel suit from them and anger their many loyal supporters, including many who are family members with missing loved ones.
     I know that thse people who issue such ultimatums do have a point, that it does matter who we "keep company with," up to a point. Those of us who are parents discourage our children from associating with peers who would be bad influences on them or undermine the values that we, their parents, are trying to instill in them. And, in a world like this, whether on social networks or in "the real world," we have to work much harder than ever, to keep ourselves and others safe and that often means avoiding suspicious or harmful people and keeping them out of our lives. And whether online or in real life, we have the moral obligation to warn people to keep themselves safe from those whom we know to be harmful or who are suspicious. There are times when names need to be named, people need to be called out and we need to play the role of whistleblower.
     But should those whom we don't agree with be treated as enemies, even in the arena of politics or religion? Especially in politics, people's feelings have a way of getting all tied up in it and even the nicest of people can grow nasty and hateful as they espouse their political views. I have seen that over and over. People who are nice, good, decent and moral, leave their civility at the door or even abandon it altogether when they debate politics. Just today, I posted a request to visit, "like" and share one of my Facebook pages. A Facebook user posted something this as a comment: "I do not join or share your material because of what you say about Obama." But that was mild compared to when I posted, earlier this year, the Facebook page called, "Pray for the President." A person posted, "Yes, pray that he will be put out of office." Another time when I shared this page, a Facebook user posted something like, "You don't know who you're supporting, stupid." And, as I have already said in another blog, when I was sending out invites to a Facebook cause called "Join the Fight to Stop Dishonoring the President," a person or two told me, "You are being deleted from my friends list!"
And, on the other side, a Facebook user recently said, "I will be removing from my friends list anyone who supports the Republicans." Months ago, I was sharing a petition with a person who lived outside the US, but I was unaware of this and the "Outside the US?" option was not on the petition, as it is now. That is beside the point of my ugly encounter with this person on Chat. I was having a hard time understanding the content of much of this person's conversation, but I could NOT mistake it when the person grew hostile about both President Obama and me and delared: "I am not about to sign this petition when you refuse to help me with MY project. This man is an evil sociopath who hates (the subjects of the petition) and he wants to see them fail! I hate him and you really think I am going to sign a petition to him! Get out of here!" (Paraphrased) In my household, there have been, and continue to be, often heated, intense debates on politics. I have and continue to hear, the opposition and supporters of the oppostion to our party of affiliation, be referred to by often vile names which are not fit to be repeated here. The point is, we are free to disagree with, and even strongly so, with anyone over politics or anyone else. But we are not free to treat them as enemies and, even worse, insist that others also treat them the same way.
     Factions will always be with us, not only in the world of politics or the missing but in every other area of life. But we do need to draw the line between looking out for each other and warning each other from harmful people, and telling people who they can be friends with and support. THe one form of behavior is for adults, the other belongs to middle-school age children.