A few months ago I was directed to a forum calling itself The UK Justice Forum which, at first glance, seemed of great interest. Started by a man who was himself victim of such an injustice, it looked like a great place to browse and, if I felt like it, join and partake of the discussions. However, the addition of a section devoted to the Madeleine McCann case soon changed my perspective and also my desire to be a part of this forum. It did not take long for the rabid McCann haters to get their feet under the table, led by some well-known names from other forums. One of them posts his vitriol on Amazon, one gets drunk, posts up insults and swears away like a navvy on a Tyneside barge; there is also one who admitted on another forum that she had defaced posters of Madeleine which were displayed around the town from which the little girl disappeared - the list goes on and on. And there is a moderator who deleted or alters any posts he does not like because they point out the totally obvious discrepancies in the arguments put up by these people. There are silly discussions like phone pings - how many, from where and what do they mean. Then we have thread after thread on the dogs, the shutters etc. We have accusations that the pro-MCann posters threaten people but no proof provided, whereas everyone has seen the screenshots of a poster on an anti-MCann forum wanting to shoot Kate McCann as she was running in the Marathon ("a joke,nothing more", asserted the admin of the facebook this appeared on), threats to bomb the McCanns' house, beat up Kate, take away the twins and so on. I won't bore you with all the other dross that is posted on that section, but I will say the following: UK Justice forum is a good one, well moderated (on the whole) but it is going downhill very fast. It reminds me of the Australian footie forum which was invaded by a certain solicitor and his following; the forum admin got so fed up with it they closed the thread, and banned the perpetrators.
Everyone has the right to his or her opinion, but nobody has the right to belittle or threaten those who are of a different way of thinking. I choose to make up my own mind on all things, and I object most strongly to people trying to browbeat me into what they see as 'the truth'. Someone called these fantasists 'armchair detectives', I think Sherlock Holmes must be turning in his mythical grave at the mad theories that have been put forward over the past 6 years. None of us knows what happened on that night, so making up lurid fantasies do not help, they hinder any attempts to get at the truth; in the end Joe Public gets fed up with the bickering and goes elsewhere. I do hope the Justice forum survives, it has some excellent posters and subjects on there, but we have seen this kind of thing before and no good came out of it.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php
Everyone has the right to his or her opinion, but nobody has the right to belittle or threaten those who are of a different way of thinking. I choose to make up my own mind on all things, and I object most strongly to people trying to browbeat me into what they see as 'the truth'. Someone called these fantasists 'armchair detectives', I think Sherlock Holmes must be turning in his mythical grave at the mad theories that have been put forward over the past 6 years. None of us knows what happened on that night, so making up lurid fantasies do not help, they hinder any attempts to get at the truth; in the end Joe Public gets fed up with the bickering and goes elsewhere. I do hope the Justice forum survives, it has some excellent posters and subjects on there, but we have seen this kind of thing before and no good came out of it.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php