Utter even a kind word and the lefties’ digital vitriol is instantly fizzing

Ever since the tie was invented, gentlemen of means have sent their sons away to a good boarding school where they would forge lifelong friendships with like-minded boys who’d go on to become useful-to-know captains of industry and world leaders. It was called ‘the old boys’ network’.

It didn’t really work for me, if I’m honest. I don’t see my school’s magazine very often but the last time I looked, there was a letter from one of my former classmates saying he’d become a manager at United Biscuits. Another had written to say he’s now a policeman.

However, the friends I met at school did introduce me to other friends, and now I have an address book that’s full of people who have jets, and can get tickets to things, and generally make my life that little bit easier.

The old boys’ network, however, is rather more than the professional equivalent of Disney’s queue-jumper pass, because it meets in dusty clubs and it sorts out all kinds of political and strategic stuff that makes it easier for the privileged to keep on being privileged.

Those on the left have never had that luxury. Largely, they went to local state schools, where they met local people who could only dream of moving to Tamworth and becoming the manager of a biscuit company. They knew that out there, in the world, there were other people who shared their views, but as they never went on shooting weekends, they could never actually find them.

And when they tried to get organized and national, and came up with secondary picketing, along came Mrs Thatcher, who said, ‘Not on your nelly, comrade.’ And banned it.

But then, all of a sudden, there was Twitter. And because of it, the lefties had a means of communication. Of finding one another. They had a network to rival the clubs of St James’s and the picnics at Eton.

Today, Twitter is said to be in trouble and lots of people have come up with all sorts of reasons why rival social media sites such as Snapchat, which is where young men post pictures of their poos, and Instagram, where young women post pictures of their dogs, are powering ahead.

I used to like Twitter a lot. It was a fun place where clever people such as Giles Coren could condense their thoughts into a literary amuse-bouche. But now it’s being policed by people who are furious about everything and everyone who isn’t Jeremy Corbyn. As a result, it can often be very unpleasant.

Last week, in this column, I said that in the olden days I used to find the whole transgender issue either funny or annoying. But I concluded by saying that it must be awful to be trapped inside the wrong sort of body and that if these unfortunate souls want a third gender-option box to tick on a passport application form, no one should really mind.

And with wearisome predictability the Mirror completely ignored the conclusion and ran a story saying that I was a bigot who’d filled my newspaper column with transphobic invective. It uploaded this to the internet and that was that.

As is the way with modern media, the story spread rapidly, until by lunchtime Twitter had accepted it as fact and then carpet-bombed my phone with abuse. It was weird. I’d said very clearly that I sympathize with transgender people. I’d said they could have my support in their quest to be recognized as a third gender. And yet, despite this, I was drowning in their vitriol.

I’m not alone, of course. There was that woman who sent a tweet saying she was boarding a plane to Africa and that she wouldn’t get AIDS while there because she was white. By the time she landed, Twitter had got her sacked.

Only last week Twitter noticed that the Christian names of Wayne Rooney’s three children began with the letter K. This meant he was definitely a member of the Ku Klux Klan and as a result he must be taken out and shot as soon as possible.

I’ll give you a dare. Go on to Twitter now and say something mildly right-wing. Say there are too many immigrants in Britain or that patio heaters didn’t cause those sperm whales to beach themselves in Norfolk. Or that you’ve shot a badger. By teatime you’ll have been made to feel like Hitler and it’ll feel like the whole country wants you to commit suicide.

Of course, you can block users who are abusive, but that’s like standing in a Bangladeshi sewer after Ramadan finishes. You can flail about as much as you like and wail loudly about the importance of free speech. But ultimately, you’re going to get covered in excrement.

This is Twitter’s big problem. It’s being policed by the Stasi. And of course, when they react angrily to what you’ve said, the Mirror and the BBC and the Guardian see this as evidence that you’ve done something wrong. So they run a story saying, ‘Twitter has reacted with fury …’ which then causes the whole site to become angrier still. Really, they should drop that bird logo and replace it with an endlessly spinning red flag.

This, then, is not the sort of platform where advertising can thrive. Praise a restaurant or a shop, and there will be an immediate assumption that you’ve been paid off, using money that should have gone to a refugee, you bastard.

In this anti-capitalist world of Twitter’s secret police, any attempt to market a good or service is met with derision. Sponsorship? Don’t make me laugh. It would have been easier to get Leonid Brezhnev to wear a McDonald’s badge on his hat. And as a result, trying to monetize Twitter is like trying to monetize Arthur Scargill’s hair. It’s not possible.

I think it’s a shame. Twitter’s a good idea. But these days it sounds like a sixth-form common room after the headmaster has announced the guest speaker at tomorrow’s assembly will be Katie Hopkins.

31 January 2016