About Fred

Dear people (this is how Fred would start a message like this, I think), what needs to happen to stop the poison that social media can be? How many people have become utterly unhappy from expressions shared via Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Patricia Paay, that poor student in America who was gay but not yet out of the closet, and whose classmate thought it necessary to hang a camera in his room and determine his coming-out for him. Result? Suicide. Insult, threat, hate. And now again the video of my dearest Fred.

Social media – we might as well call it anti-social media – sometimes has beautiful sides. Of course. We share a lot and you are just a step away from your favorite singer. Boundaries blur, but this cannot happen, this must not happen, and this must stop.

It can be very simple. Ban anonymous accounts and link each account to the citizen service number of the person in question. Then every sender of a message is traceable and that person, as in the case of sharing the video of Fred, can be punished. Hopefully, social media can then return to what they are really meant for: social, and not to destroy lives.

Image: Nick van Ormondt