Why we are not on social media
Public exposure on social media all too often attracts unwanted aggression and even hate.
Adults often have a hard time dealing with that, kids even more so. We decided to pull out completely.
This is community policy. Naturally, every family decides on their own individual use and handling of social media.
In our earliest days, member families occasionally featured in newspaper and magazine articles.
They experienced two kinds of consequences.
One, that other parents approached them with the request to organize partner families for them too,
hoping to take a short-cut around the application procedure. They had to decline. Naturally, they
would have much preferred not to have been asked to do something like that at all.
And, even more troubling, a number of kids were bullied for being featured in the media and for their
international connections. Some of their peers saw their curiosity and eagerness to learn as elitism.
They - quite unfairly - thought they were up themselves, and so the bullies took steps to "bring them down a peg".
That's why we decided years ago that we would no longer introduce Global Native families to the public.
They experienced two kinds of consequences.
One, that other parents approached them with the request to organize partner families for them too,
hoping to take a short-cut around the application procedure. They had to decline. Naturally, they
would have much preferred not to have been asked to do something like that at all.
And, even more troubling, a number of kids were bullied for being featured in the media and for their
international connections. Some of their peers saw their curiosity and eagerness to learn as elitism.
They - quite unfairly - thought they were up themselves, and so the bullies took steps to "bring them down a peg".
That's why we decided years ago that we would no longer introduce Global Native families to the public.
Global Natives never state or advertise their membership in public.
Why? Because the community is not a movement and wants no labels. It is a catalyst for individual initiative, a platform for self-enablement. |
The pandemic and the current climate - both political and social - have caused a great number of individuals on social media to adopt a very aggressive tone towards people who don't think like them. There are folks with truly disturbing conspiracy theories, there are people who believe in all kinds of worrying ideas on the origins of the virus, there are racists, sexists, homophobic fanatics, Greta-haters and militant anti-vaxxers. We live in an era of hostile intolerance.
Global Natives are open-minded families with a passion for science, happy to invest time and effort to study and learn.
They want to understand. Life, the world, each other.
But we refuse to be drawn into futile online disputes based on weird arguments; we refuse to be harassed for taking
a pragmatic approach and for respecting the opinions of experts.
We really do not believe that Bill Gates wants to eliminate us all through vaccines, nor do we fear to be controlled by reptilians or illuminati. As dedicated parents and education-enthusiasts, we have better things to do with our time than do verbal battle with folks who're quite resistant to reason and scientific evidence.
Global Natives are open-minded families with a passion for science, happy to invest time and effort to study and learn.
They want to understand. Life, the world, each other.
But we refuse to be drawn into futile online disputes based on weird arguments; we refuse to be harassed for taking
a pragmatic approach and for respecting the opinions of experts.
We really do not believe that Bill Gates wants to eliminate us all through vaccines, nor do we fear to be controlled by reptilians or illuminati. As dedicated parents and education-enthusiasts, we have better things to do with our time than do verbal battle with folks who're quite resistant to reason and scientific evidence.
Our members use social media as they think fit.
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This New York Times article by the excellent Kashmir Hill illustrates an aspect of social media abuse worth keeping in mind: Web of Vengeance.