E tudo um tweet levou
Depois de dois dias sem rede (auto-disciplina e não problemas de acesso) hoje, depois de pôr as leituras em dia, resolvi espreitar o Twitter para ver quais os assuntos mais falados. Entre eles encontrei a hashtag Jan Moir, que resolvi pesquisar.
Descobri imediatamente que a aparente popularidade da opinadora do Daily Mail se devia às piores razões. Jan Moir aproveitou a morte de Stephen Gately, tornado famoso primeiro com a Boyzone e depois com a sua saída pública do armário - um inédito para um membro de uma boys band -, para escrever um artigo pseudo-moralista e homofóbico que está prestes a bater todos os recordes de queixas à autoridade competente, a Press Complaints Commission (PCC). A spin doctor do Daily Mail resolveu dar largas à sua imaginação efabulando sobre as causas da morte da pop star, que recusou deverem-se a um problema genético, insinuando que a verdadeira causa da morte se encontrava «Under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see».
Este estilo de vida muito diferente e perigoso, um sinónimo para Moir de homossexualidade, segundo a iluminada senhora «stikes a blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships» esclarecendo imdiatamente que se referia às uniões de facto homossexuais: «Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages.»
O artigo levantou uma onda de protestos no Twitter, em particular por parte de Stephen Fry e Derren Brown ( que têm conjuntamente mais de um milhão de seguidores), que se expandiu rapidamente por toda a internet e imprensa escrita. Esta onda de indignação pelo jornalismo de sarjeta levou mesmo à retirada de publicidade, a pedido do Marks&Spencer, da página online onde o artigo figurava. O Independent explica hoje como a popularidade da hashtag que me surpreendeu há minutos ilustra bem o poder das chamadas redes sociais:
«It started with a tweet. The speed and ferocity with which the reaction to Jan Moir's inflammatory piece developed was a perfect example of the potential of the internet as a medium for instant communication - both good and bad.
Twitter was the epicentre of the uproar, it seemed, with users coining the hashtag #janmoir following the article's publication, and references to the Daily Mail, and the piece's author top of the site all day. In a scramble to save face, the Mail's editors, and in particular those of its online team, must have been bewildered when efforts to soften the blow by editing the headline to the piece online only attracted more derision; the change was documented on Twitter photosharing website TwitPic within minutes.
Six separate Facebook groups were established, demanding the Mail retract the article and calling for Moir to be fired, while internet users hoped to top the 40,000 complaints the Mail managed to muster in its campaign against Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand last year, flocking to the Press Complaints Commission website in such numbers that their servers buckled under the strain, leaving the site down for hours.
Moir herself apparently took to Twitter in a belated effort to apologise at the behest of her editor, an indication perhaps of how seriously even an old media fixture like the Mail must take such an outcry. But in truth, the formal apology only betrayed an ignorance as to the nature of the online reaction; Father Ted writer Graham Linehan put it best on Twitter, refuting Moir, the Mail, and their PR company's claim that the reaction was a "heavily orchestrated internet campaign"; "No", he tweeted, "you just united everyone in revulsion at your horrible words."»
Como lê o último twit de Brown, «If Gateley's passing causes today's kind of gutter-journalism to be held to account, we can perhaps take that as a tribute.» Sem dúvidas!
