Colette Douglas Home's excellent article was a welcome and thoughtful contribution which poured cold water on the recent insanity concerning the use of Twitter to abuse other people ("McAlpine strikes a blow against tweeting tittle-tattle", The Herald, November 20).
In common with many other citizens I tweet on a regular basis, making comment on the issues which interest me. I have never even considered the possibility of being able to use this, or any other medium, to launch a personal attack on any person; and certainly never to make a comment I would not make directly to the person concerned.
Like all online media, tweets reflect the interest of the tweeter and this is both its strength and its weakness. People whose only interest is celebrity gossip will tweet accordingly and unfortunately the tweets of those who appear to be incapable of thinking before speaking will reflect that. No form of social media is responsible for that; it is the actions of those who use Twitter to abuse others who must bear the blame.
Ann Ballinger,
63 Glen Sannox Drive,
Cumbernauld.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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