On 12 July British aristocrat Rhodri Philipps was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for posting a threatening and racially-aggravated message on Facebook against the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller. Philipps had offered £5000 to “the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant”, referring to Ms Miller as a “boat jumper”.
Thankfully we don’t have this sort of problem in Bridge. The Bridge village Facebook site is an asset to the village. It was set up by two parish councillors and plays a valued role in the social and cultural life of the community. But two days after Philipps started his sentence a thread appeared on the site that some in Bridge have found unsettling.
The thread – now closed – appeared on 14 July. It was started by a villager noting that Canterbury City Council had ratified the local plan which includes a Green Gap between Bridge and the planned Mountfield development. It was suggested that the Green Gap is under threat from the Bridge Neighbourhood Plan. There was an attempt to open a debate, with the post finishing “What do you think?”
All very democratic; and had the thread been allowed to run a range of views could have been garnered to help the village’s decision makers. But after 6 likes and 2 agrees, two lengthy posts were made by the Parish Council chairman; some other villagers then posted that these contributions were inappropriate in terms of content and tone. Some further postings were made before a second member of the Parish Council intervened, after which the thread was closed.
You can see the thread on Facebook here. (If you cannot access Facebook please click here.) Our readers will make up their own minds on which postings were inappropriate. No one from ConserveBridge posted to the thread.
Parish councillors are people with strong views; and they are fully entitled to hold and express these views. And, as we have made clear before in previous postings on this page, councillors are entitled to the appreciation of the community for serving the village. We are happy to repeat that here. One of the councillors who posted to the thread made clear he did so because he “wanted to give something back,” a motive that deserves respect.
But there is something else that is important too: councillors serve the community. They thus have to grapple with the dilemma of expressing both their own views, as well as the mood of the community. We accept that this cannot always be easy; but it is the nature of public office. Councillors cannot fend off criticisms and opinions they do not agree with by responding that they are “volunteers” who “do their best”. Like any public representative – such as city councillors, county councillors and MPs – they need to accept alternative views and, sometimes, criticism, alongside the plaudits and the praise. It should not be otherwise in a healthy democracy. The issues at stake – housing, preserving the shrinking Green Gap between Bridge and Canterbury, and our status as a rural community – are simply too important.
The disagreement on the Bridge Facebook site is trivial in comparison to the dark unpleasantness of the Philipps-Miller case. However, in very different ways both cases raise important questions on how social media should be used, the opinions that can legitimately be expressed, and the sanctions that should be taken against those whose views transgress what is socially acceptable. We note that this morning a new administrator’s message has appeared on the Bridge site: “Posts should be polite, no mockery or scorn – else you may be banned.”
We welcome this. We are confident that no one will be banned simply for expressing views that differ with those of community leaders; and we trust that the warning applies to everyone without fear or favour, members of the public and parish councillors alike.
