If arguing with people on the internet was an Olympic sport, I might make the b-team of a regional side made of slightly aggrieved John Lewis customers complaining on Facebook and a man who once got upset about a misplaced apostrophe (long before the whole Waterstones/Waterstone’s thing made it fashionable). 

I’m pretty terrible at arguing with people on the internet because my feelings get hurt fast. It’s a throwback to school days where, for quite a number of years, bullies could turn me into a human sprinkler of tears and snot with a well-aimed barb about my mum/my haircut/my devotion to Judge Dredd and his no-nonsense approach to crime prevention. 

Over time I honed my ability to throw back a sarcastic comment or barbed insult but if face-to-face rows are sword fights, online spats are lobbing mortars across no-man’s land: there’s a good chance you’ll miss entirely but the direct hits do more damage. It’s also easier to find yourself facing an ‘enemy’ with far more resources at their disposal. There now follows a Twitter case study…

THE BATTLE OF FREETOWN 

This week, film-maker and screenwriting tutor Jon Spira responded to some tweets from actor and writer Emma Kennedy about whether young writers should ever work for anyone who does not pay. Little did he know that he was about to find himself facing accusations of harassment and be painted as a nasty, green-skinned troll man. You can read his take on what happened here and here. 

To be fair, Emma Kennedy says three of her tweets that preceded the conversation with Jon Spira were not included in his account. But what he did replicate was a screenshot of their entire back and forth. It quickly moves from a disagreement over when and if writing for free for organisations with a budget is ever reasonable into something bitter.

Neither party was entirely innocent but it certainly seems like Kennedy got aggressive first and was more ferocious throughout. So what? The content of the disagreement isn’t what I’m interested in. It’s what came next. 

THE BLOCK VOTE 

From the public tweets, it’s clear that Kennedy engaged in a running debate with Spira when she could have stopped at any point. In the end she blocked him, which she obviously has every right to do, and publicly accused him of harassing and tracking down her details when he sent an email to the address on her website.

She didn’t ignore the email but instead wrote a reply and engaged in another dialogue which concluded with a threat to report him to his employers for harassment. Others on Twitter claim this isn’t the first time she’s made that kind threat. 

Once Spira’s blog post began to be shared, it prompted more tweets from Kennedy continuing to paint him as a crazy harasser who had dug up her email address. She attacked him as a horrific troll and a “mentalist” who had bombarded her with endless tweets rather than someone who had a marginally different opinion to her on one topic. The emails he sent to her and published on his blog were, as described by her, “vile”. 

In one of her own emails to Spira, Kennedy refers to a chapter in Grace Dent’s book How To Leave Twitter called “The terrible unfollowed me email of doom” telling him: “There’s a whole section on people who send essay length emails to people who have blocked them. Go away. You are no better than a troll.” Spira’s initial email ran to nine short paragraphs and was clearly intended to clear up what had become a needlessly aggressive encounter. Ironically, Grace Dent no longer follows Emma Kennedy. 

IF YOU FOLLOW ME… 

It might seem faintly ridiculous that I am even taking the time to detail this minor skirmish in the endless Arguing With People On The Internet tournament. But there is something quite unsettling about witnessing prominent tweeters who seem to have gone light headed at the summit of their mountain of followers. 

Emma Kennedy’s online persona and the one that she presents in her Guardian travel columns and books is a kind of whimsical adult Enid Blyton adventurer act. She addresses Twitter as if it were a big gang bounding around an idealised boarding school where she moons over more popular girls (Caitlin Moran and Grace Dent) and larks about with other famous folk. Good on her if that’s what she enjoys. But based on quite a few anecdotes it seems she’s has a rep for lashing out when people don’t see things her way.

The lesson that Jon Spira learned was that it doesn’t do to disagree with Emma Kennedy. I am now summarily blocked, not for directly contradicting her words but for sharing Spira’s blog posts. Highlighting a rather pointed amendment someone had made to her Wikipedia page probably didn’t help either. 

I can understand how someone with tens of thousands of Twitter followers can end up feeling miserable and under attack when people descend to criticise them. While that’s what the block button is there for, Twitter can be like stumbling into a room full of people who want to kick you in the shins and spit on your best work as much as it can be an amazing party packed with brilliant people telling you astounding stories.

I have a fraction of the followers Emma Kennedy has and I’ve definitely received replies that have made me feel like I did back when I was picked on school boy. But sometimes people won’t agree with what you have to say and they’ll try to debate with you. That’s what happens if you share your thoughts and opinions in public. 

If there was a spotter’s guide to internet creatures, it would note that people who disagree are not necessarily trolls. They could just be people who think differently. Giana Trapani who has even more followers than Emma Kennedy, 200,000 in fact, posted a good piece on the challenges of dealing with a large following just today.

As a minor league Arguing With People On The Internet player, I prefer that non-contact version where you play the ball and not the man. I don’t always succeed. I’ve certainly been guilty of foul play in my time but when someone like Emma Kennedy who has an army of followers plays dirty against someone who has a far smaller platform to defend themselves, it’s an unedifying spectacle. She was arrogant and unpleasant. 

I’m sure if Emma Kennedy read this blog she’d conclude that I’m just another horrible troll man attacking her for no reason and failing to appreciate the subtle nuance of her finely-honed arguments. But I’m not. She’s just an example of the way things can go a little bit wrong on Twitter when big egos are further swelled by a big platform. 

There’s a class of prominent Twitterers in the UK who really do believe that they make the rules and that, by and large, the people that follow them are there to listen and pay homage to their charming banter with the important people (anyone who has a book/TV series/film to point to). Dare to disagree with them, even in friendly way, and you’re running the risk of being shoved under the bridge with the trolls. 

Emma Kennedy has now written about her view on Twitter spats on her blog and Jon Spira has responded noting that he didn’t know she’d blocked him when he emailed her. If you disagree with me, let’s have a game of Arguing With People On The Internet on Twitter.