Hiding behind a screen name

Something that I have been noticing more and more are people that will make negative comments either on Facebook or on YouTube videos. In several cases, the person isn’t using their own name so that they can hide before the screen and just be negative to others.

I am a moderator or an administration for a few Facebook groups and I have noticed that people seem to like making negative comments. Recently there was a simple comment made in one of the groups, and then it blew up into a bunch of back-and-forth negative comments, and of course this happens when you are not monitoring the group. By the time I got to see the chat it had got bad, so I had to step in and take care of this situation. The result was lots of comments were removed and everyone got a warning about being kind and considerate to each other. I really wonder how many people would say these comments to a person if they were in person. I think part of it is that people think they can say anything they want because they are hiding behind a screen.

While watching YouTube videos, I look through some of the comments, and it is amazing how many people will say hurtful comments to a person. I have seen people say a YouTuber was fat, they were insensitive to others, they think too much of themselves. These are just a few of the comments that I have seen. Of course, these are people that are trying to hurt the YouTuber, but I have seen a lot of the YouTubers either ignore the comments or talk about them on their channels with a reply of if you don’t like watching my channel, there are a lot of other channels you can go and watch.

Yes, I so agree with the comment that there are a lot of other channels on YouTube or groups on Facebook that you can belong to. If you don’t like something that someone has said on social media, the best thing you can do is scroll by it. In the case of YouTube, maybe unsubscribe from the channel if you don’t like the person. On Facebook you can either just scroll past the comment and say nothing, which is the best idea, or if you don’t like how a group is managed you can always leave the group.

Hiding behind a screen name may make you think you are better than others, but really what you are doing is showing a weakness that you have. If you can only say negative things about people, remember that everyone has feelings, and we need to respect each other.