Net post enrages Bisayas in Visayas, Mindanao

Friday, February 10, 2012

AS PANIC swept Cebu and Negros following the magnitude 6.9 earthquake last Monday, a certain Ahcee Flores read a Yahoo article about the tsunami alert and posted comments that enraged people from the Visayas and Mindanao.

“Ahcee” posted this: “Let us all pray… na matuloy and tsunami para maraming Bisaya ang mamatay, para mabawasan ang mga baduy sa Pilipinas (Let’s all pray for the tsunami to push through so many Bisaya will die, and so there’ll be fewer unfashionable people in the Philippines).”

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In another post, Ahcee said the Bisaya people deserve to die for ruining forests and for being bad and arrogant.

Netizens erupted in anger. Facebook groups condemning “Ahcee” were created. One of these groups is the Kill Ahcee Flores Movement, which got more than 19,000 “likes” as of yesterday.

Another Facebook group called “Ahcee Flores-Persona non grata in Cebu” got more than 3,000 likes as of yesterday.

Photos attributed to Ahcee are that of a woman.

Angry Facebook users called Ahcee various names, including “demon,” “sira ulo,” “walang utak” and “kulang sa pansin.”

“This woman should be decapitated live on national TV,” said a user named Yuma Asami.

Advice

Blogger and social media consultant Vernon Go, in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu yesterday, advised the netizens to react calmly.

“For someone like me who is engaged in the online community, and as a blogger, I think that one has to step back from the computer screen, take a few deep breaths and just close the tab or browser, even if the comment is so annoying to the point of getting into your skin,” Go said.

One should be responsible in posting comments on the Internet, “since it’s a very powerful tool of expression,” the former president of the Cebu Bloggers Society said.

“Many netizens forget that some rules in the real world must be applied in the online world,” added Go.

Go said “Ahcee” could be a troll.

According to Wikipedia, trolls are people who post “inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community… with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response…”

Maribeth Oliver of Web Safety PH site has tips for netizens on how to deal with trolls: “Do not feed the troll. Keep your cool. Do not retaliate head on to trolls, they will just enjoy it. They will react more to attract attention.”