Owen Polley: Recent Twitter pile-on shows social media has shrunk the range of ‘allowable’ views

This leads to some lively and interesting discussions, but too often, it also means that challenging or complicated viewpoints are caricatured, demonised and, ultimately, silenced.

Many modern politicians and their advisers are so sensitive to prevailing opinions online, that it has become difficult or even impossible to debate some policy areas properly, if they touch upon sensitive subjects.

Take one example, raised recently on Twitter by the News Letter’s own Ben Lowry. Ben posted a link to a news report about the Auditor General, who criticised the way that the Department of Education provides services for children with special educational needs (SEN) in Northern Ireland.

Kieran Donnelly warned that the current cost of these services, which reached £1.3 billion over the past five years, is “not financially sustainable”. Ben’s tweet noted that this expenditure was “colossal”, adding “Stormont says little about (the spend) because it sounds harsh to curb it”.

In response, the Sinn Fein MP, Michelle Gildernew, ranted that “this is a new low for Ben Lowry,” calling on him to, “retract this statement immediately and apologise for the hurt he has caused”.

Her colleague, Chris Hazzard, accused Ben of “spouting bile… about vulnerable children being a colossal expenditure”.

These were among the more printable reactions to the tweet and I repeat them because they were made by public figures.

Ben’s timeline was also bombarded with replies full of the most vicious bad language, abuse and threats from less high profile individuals.

Now, I do not have detailed knowledge of the provision made in Northern Ireland for special needs children and I would not want to make a judgement on the topic.

It could be that the Northern Ireland Audit Office’s criticisms were harsh. But the context of Ben’s tweet was clear.

He was responding to a published report from the official body that audits government departments in Northern Ireland and he echoed its findings.

We should be shocked and concerned that a journalist can draw such a hysterical reaction simply by engaging with an important news story about public expenditure that was already in the public domain.

Had his critics bothered to read the article, before jumping in to harangue Ben, they could have digested the Auditor General’s criticisms in detail.

Kieran Donnelly called for “a systemic review of the SEN policies, processes, services and funding model to ensure the provision is sufficient to meet the needs of all children with SEN”.

He advocated introducing a time-limit for issuing statements of special educational needs, because, currently, 85% of children who apply for SEN services have to wait longer than 26 weeks.

In addition, the Auditor General wanted the department to focus its resources on the types of support that are proven to have the best outcome for pupils and highlighted “a 36 per cent increase in children with a statement in the past nine years”.

So, in less than a decade the number of children deemed to have special educational needs has risen by more than a third. A point that is worth closer scrutiny, at least.

The NIAO explains its case across a 70 page report, accompanied by videos and a slide-show. It includes the proviso that, “support for pupils with SEN is a vital and valued service and the educational achievements of children with SEN is improving, which, of course is to be welcomed.”

On Twitter, Ben had only 280 characters, but it was obvious that he was echoing the Auditor General’s findings, and adding the important point that Stormont frequently ignores difficult and controversial issues, rather than taking responsibility for them.

It is a critique that applies to the lack of reform in our health service, problems with an inefficient school estate, crumbling water infrastructure and countless other matters that have gone unresolved for decades.

Unfortunately, because social media amplifies popular opinions, and because it is easy to strip a tweet of context, the Twitter mob was soon in full cry.

Ben highlighted important questions about public expenditure, political leadership and accountability, but he was cast as targeting vulnerable kids.

Those who do not follow his work closely could not know that this misrepresentation was led by people who already view him with hostility, due to his forthright unionist views and his willingness to write about the legacy of the Troubles.

Two things were going on. People with an agenda were taking an opportunity to attack a commentator who often challenges them and a tweet about policy and funding got tangled up with deeply personal feelings about SEN. Social media has a habit of distorting debate and flattening out nuance in this way.

This example was exacerbated by Northern Ireland’s traditional divisions, which are often played out online, but it illustrated themes that have become a familiar part of modern political discourse across the west. Look at the way in which a complicated discussion over the merits of lockdown has been portrayed as a question of putting lives above the economy.

Despite its global reach, it seems social media has actually narrowed the spread of opinions that are deemed permissible, and it puts some topics beyond discussion altogether. It also attracts the attention of politicians (and journalists) in a way that can crowd out serious debate and strip important subjects of all their complexity.

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