COMMENT: Ideas should be challenged not shut down - Jon Stokes

The contrast was powerful yet, there it was, blokey humour and the nudge-nudge, wink-wink insider jokes of a small group of like-minded social media "friends".

I stumbled upon the exchanges when trying to find more information and answers to the terrible development that was unfolding in Christchurch on Friday afternoon, March 15.

The information on the radio was vague, but I heard an eye-witness of the massacre talk about 30 to 50 people being injured or killed.

As a former journalist and as a human being my desire was to try to understand, to seek out information in the swirling uncertainty and growing sense of unease and magnitude that was increasing after listening to the coverage unfold first across the radio then on television.

There was far more detail available online than conventional news outlets were sharing. There was the name and twitter feed of the terrorist gunman. There was links to and screen shots of his "manifesto" and the discussions among his peers on Twitter and the sinister 8Chan website that he was a member of. The exchanges could have been the casual banter among teammates in a changing shed before a social-grade rugby game. Except it was the banter of extreme racists and Islamophobes and which would spawn killing and devastation that would echo across the world.

Unbelievably there was links to live-streaming the killer had shared leading up to and including the devastation he inflicted on the peaceful Muslim worshippers in their house of unity and prayer. It included photos of his guns and ammunition, and reference to the sound track he listened to on his trip to unleash his hate. The weapons were engraved with words which had a meaning only really to those members of his social media clan.

What struck me when reading the gunman's words and those of the tiny number who he had developed a rapport and shared appreciation and isolation with, was how completely out of touch they had become with the world that I and almost everyone I know inhabits. The world I know is affected by the loss of life, it is one which does not encourage or endorse violence against others. It is a world where all normal points of reference are up-ended when a world scale massacre is unfolding in a very familiar city that is home to a number of friends and associates.

How could there be humour, and insider jokes? How could you expect adulation and hero-worship after engaging in the massacre of innocents ranging from just 3-years-of-age to the elderly. How did this enclave of isolation and wrong ideas and concepts develop? How do you become so separated from such simple concepts of fairness and societal norms?

Brendon Tarrant had been able to become enveloped and blinkered by a community where it was acceptable, even encouraged to so profoundly hate and then go on to kill other human beings. To believe that he was doing good for his "community" and that his actions would make him a hero among his peers. Even more perversely he had formed such a twisted world-view among individuals that he by and large had never and will likely never meet in person. A "community" that is basically anonymous or where people hide behind pseudonyms and are faceless individuals who he shared only the relative isolation of hate-filled racist views and a hunger for the steady stream of bile and misinformation of the extreme ramblings of alternative news and social media views.

And a shared appreciation for the "humour" and bravado of those sinister and appalling "inside jokes".

I imagine even in the isolation of his prison cell, where he is unable to access and therefore connect with his "community", that Tarrant imagines the adulation and "progress" in the world that his actions have created. Yet, he is also unable to see and understand the immense harm, despair and destruction he has caused. The horror and contempt now embedded in the hearts of many millions of people across the world. The shame among many Australians and sadly kiwis, and the fear for their safety he has created for his family, who knew nothing of what he planned and had become. He has become a "hero" to a tiny invisible community who will eventually move out of the family basement or will be forced or achieve the maturity to be finally able to pull up the shutters and turn off the computer screen and head out embrace and reconnect with the real world. Or who will simply fade away.

He will in time understand all these things with complete certainty.

There is a growing chorus to seek to silence and suppress aspects of this tragedy. It started on Friday and resulted in my going online to find information and detail rather than relying solely on the media and what information police and officials were prepared to share.

There is also a call to shut down coverage of the killer's manifesto and to desire to try to blacken his name from history.

There is nothing in his manifesto that is not already known. They are the jumbled words of manipulators, fascists and racists from across the ages. He has plagiarised the ramblings of many of histories misguided and evil. Viewing the mess of ideas is useful to understand how confused, simplistic and deluded he is. Suppressing and seeking to control what people can hear based on the emotions of the moment and what some believe, only pushes information underground. It ensures someone else tells the story, and as we have found, some can put a painfully deadly slant on things. It adds a "mystery" and edginess for some while also insulting most of our society who are good people who know right from wrong. Good people are impacted and moved to act when confronted by wrong. This has been demonstrated by the solidarity and outpouring of grief and support which has been the far more prevalent activity from across our many communities post the tragedy.

However, what must be confronted is the growing ease with which people of all walks of life and religious and political persuasions can now become enveloped and cocooned by a social media "world" that re-enforces a very selective view. A social collective that can become magnified and emboldened because it is the only information people read and hear. Today we live in a world where you can and many do, seek to control who and what they are prepared to read and listen too. This then of course becomes the only truth, and eventually it is a truth that others must also hear and embrace. There is a move to shut down the voices and ideas of others, to try to homogenise ideas and perspectives. Social media encourages a belief that if my chosen peer group "like" what I say and give me positive affirmation, then it is truth and that "I" and my "community" are in alignment. This is growing to the point where social media often leads and controls the media, and which has progressed to some social media commentators now demanding media impose a number of controls.

Shutting down ideas is not what is required, rather it is an opening up and pulling down of these ideological racial gender societal and religious barriers that are flourishing. It is insisting on the benefits of understanding and tolerance. It is in not fearing and shutting down difference, or the selective determination of what difference we favour or don't. It is confronting bad thinking and behaviour with good ideas and behaviour. It is helping to understand why an idea is wrong and in providing context and understanding so truth can be found by the individual rather than being enforced to a position simply because another demands you do.

We need to seek to shut down social media echo-chambers, and online bullying of ALL manner. Especially that which encourages a them and us mindset and which seeks to try to shut down those who have a different view. It is a relatively anonymous and faceless environment which emboldens and sadly encourages heat rather than light. It is an environment where many are forced to withdraw and disengage, in public forums anyway.

The evil unleashed on Friday, March 15 showed me that those silenced or suppressed voices will always find a home, and an outlet to ensure they are heard. The way forward is light, not darkness, it is away with anonymity and facelessness. It is a time of ownership of our ideas and views, and embracing tolerance and understanding.

* Jon Stokes is New Plymouth-based communications professional.