TWITTER; FRIEND OR FOE?

This post is just my opportunity to have a bit of a rant and I know there are many other F1 fans who would agree with me on this one. If you do, or don't, drop a comment below! Now a small warning; this post is quite uncharacteristic of me!

So, Twitter is a great social networking site. I love using it and I've had a lot of fun talking to and meeting other fans of Formula 1. After a race or after some breaking news it is the go-to place for all the latest opinions. I've gotten to talk to other fans about who their favourite drivers/teams are, what they think about driver contracts and who should stay/go to another team and had so much more F1 conversations. We also talk about non-F1 related stuff because we all have other interests and it is fun to be able to share those with each other. As a fan of a lot of other sports it was great during Euro 2012 to be able to talk to some about the football and talk to others about the European Grand Prix simultaneously. We all love Twitter, that's why we spend endless hours on it, and if you're not on Twitter I do think you're missing out. However, it't not all fun and games...

There are some fans on Twitter who take things too far. A debate, whatever the topic may be, is always interesting because you get to hear the opinions and thoughts of someone you may not necessarily agree with but respect each other enough to realise that you don't have to agree on everything. How boring would we and Twitter be if everyone thought exactly the same thing on every topic? That was a rhetorical question and the answer is very! It's good to encourage different points of view and talk about what you think with others. You may end up learning new things or even changing your initial opinion. By the way, that does not make you 'flaky'! If anything I think it's a good thing and shows you're not stuck in your ways.

Lately I've had some intellectual, F1-related chats via Twitter with other fans. That's been fun! However, there have been other fans who don't seem to realise that we won't all always agree. But that's fine, some people are like that. Now we get to the thing that really annoys me and it all started because of Pastor Maldonado. Ok, we all have our different opinions on him. I think it's obvious that Maldonado has been involved in many 'incidents' this season and last year so naturally some fans of the sport won't be and don't have to be fans of him. That said, their problems should lie with his driving style and that only... There is really no need, that I can see anyway, to start attacking a driver on personal issues that are completely unrelated to his driving or on-track behaviour. You may not like that he was involved in a collision that ended your favourite driver's race but how are his looks in any way related to that? I saw some tweets yesterday that were just plain nasty and I can't understand why some fans people would need to make things personal.

Then we get on to the disgusting issue of death threats on Twitter. I shouldn't even have to explain why this is wrong so I'm not going to. All I'll say is if you are a fan threatening to kill a driver on Twitter, whether you mean this seriously or not, you may have to reconsider that fan status. You can't call that a joke because it's just not funny and we should all know the effect our words, spoken or typed, can have!

All I want to say is we will all have our favourite or preferred drivers and you don't have to 'like' every driver on the grid but, at the end of the day, your passion for the sport should come first. We should all respect what these drivers do and recent, heartbreaking events in Formula 1 (my thoughts are with Maria de Villota and her family) show just what they risk. This is why death threats and wishing a driver crashes during a race are truly disgusting and uncalled for, in my opinion. Whatever a driver does on track adds to the excitement of the sport and if something like a crash does happen the stewards deal with it as they see fit; you don't have to agree with their decision and you can/should express that but there is a limit to how far you should go. We are all united by our love for what we believe to be the most exciting sport and that should come first!

*Rant over* Let me know what you think on this topic and what your Twitter experience is like!

Aqsa, @aqsasformula