Dear Mr. Habeck, please do not do it!

So I am in a good position at the same time, not limited to the choice within a particular party on the other hand, in the bad position of not seeing many people regardless of whom I believe Chancellor. One of these very few is for me Robert Habeck, who currently leads the fate of the Greens. Generally I feel – at least currently or currently again – the Greens closer than CDU and SPD, closer also as FDP and left and of course also closer than CSU or the AfD.

This does not change the fact that I too would not fully agree with the Greens program. Nevertheless, Habeck is for me the man I would most like to be in this office. Because I think he’s an intelligent man and a man of charisma. But above all, because it seems so much more reflective than anything else that sits there in the Bundestag.

He is able to admit mistakes, to communicate things clearly, but also deliberately and when he talks about the political competition, he is able to name positive points as such, if he perceives them as positive. This is so beneficial unlike the biting reflex of most politicians who can not shake the feeling that they are often against something because it demands a different party and not their own political camp.

I speak here about Robert Habeck for a special reason that you’ve probably read elsewhere on the net already: He has both on Twitter and Facebook canceled the sails and deleted his accounts. There are two reasons for this: first of all there is the data junk number, where he is one of those affected, who suddenly had to find the most private chat messages from his family accessible to everyone on the net.

And there is another because his own stupidity, which made him want to be in a campaign video, that Thuringia is a democracy. This is doubly stupid because he obviously does not tick that he denies the Thuringian state government (in the incidentally, the Greens themselves participate) the understanding of democracy and because he has allowed himself the same faux pas in Bavaria. In the usual, reflected manner, he talks about it as clearly on his blog:

A beginning of the year that was twice as wrong in digital terms: First, the attack on the most private data of my families, published via Twitter were. Then again on Twitter a mistake on my part – and the same for the second time: how stupid do you have to be to make a mistake twice? This question did not let me go the whole last night. Robert Habeck, The Greens

This is exactly the kind of insight that I would like from many more politicians. Other politicians are cranking around, confessing at most that they have not made their point of view clear enough and the like. Habeck recognizes his mistake, communicates it frankly and directly draws the consequences from it. Unfortunately, the wrong ones, I think. The retreat on Facebook and Twitter is for me the completely wrong signal.

I can understand its reason even in the core:

After a sleepless night I come to the conclusion that Twitter rubs off on me. That I tuned in both videos, the Bavarian -unconsciously in the polemische way of Twitter. Twitter is more aggressive than any other digital medium, and there is no other medium with so much hate, malice and hate speech. Apparently, Twitter triggers something in me: to be more aggressive, louder, more polemical and sharper – all in a swiftness that makes it hard to leave room for reflection. Apparently, I’m not immune to it. Robert Habeck, The Greens

Once again I would like to take a hat off to the way in which he goes to court with himself not looking for a cheap excuse. But still, I think someone like him, who has such an important political position, should not withdraw from the social media field. After all, it’s not nearly as if he’s scared to fire off unbearable tweets like the US president.

I have a lot of respect for admitting that sometimes it’s less controlled and after TV appearances greedy Twitter checks to fathom the reactions. That’s actually a point to keep under control, or there are two things you need to keep under control: control, which prevents you from slipping off sentences that you would not actually say – and to others the lack of attention at work because one is always on Twitter.

But you can get that fixed:

Dear Mr. Habeck,

Get yourself a man or better a team ran and be coached in dealing with social media. And I do not mean Twitter or Facebook basics – you already master this keyboard extraordinarily well. Rather, it’s about other issues: How do I lower my own outrage machinery before I start typing? How do I keep track of what I have said, which may be misquoted or cut elsewhere? It’s best to dictate your tweets directly, not to a person who does it blindly, but who is also capable of moderating a daring statement and pulling a ripcord in an emergency before a tweet goes live.

I’m not one of those social media experts, so I can not offer a perfect strategy, but there are many people who can and you, Mr. Habeck, are smart enough to take good advice and learn from it. You may not quite believe it because a stupid mistake has happened to you a second time. But the realization that you made a mistake and then be able to admit it positively sets you apart from most federal politicians.

That’s why you should not go to court too hard, not too premature Social media field evacuate and above all this field not without a fight left to those who want to compensate for lack of arguments by volume and lack of intelligence through aggression. Instead, put together a powerful team that’s shoddy enough in terms of both social media and politics and rhetoric.

This will not stop you from trying to tamper with your personal data and, if possible, against you but you can gain more control over your own actions and present exactly the sharpened profile on the web that you would like to stand for.

I can fully understand why you have decided that and yet: Please do not do it!

Hopeful,

Yours, Carsten Drees

Social Media, Level 2

Like many before him, Habeck must now also be on the Hard way to learn that in the glistening light of Twitter glory, you can not only shine magnificently, but also smash badly. The shitstorms in general are here and there comprehensible, the often so rude tone of many screaming necks but almost always clearly covered. This means that you have to be prepared for such shitstorms, regardless of whether you – as a politician or as a private person – takes the tone or not.

There is a reason why we have talked about Hate Speech for so long, talk about filter bubbles and too soft mass of the minded. Everything is flying around our ears on many fronts. But the solution can not be that we withdraw. The Internet will not go away, social media will not go away and if not socially as well as technically doing anything on these platforms, then the populists will never leave.

That has less to do with Robert Habeck to do more with the complete current situation. We need to reach a new level of social media together. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook need to find ways and tools that bring hate speech and fake news under control. But at the same time we too – each on our own – must find a way to act on the social media stage.

Even the angry ones must learn that one must not equate a delinquent refugee with the mass of all refugees that there are no simple solutions to complex problems, and that one is no more right than others just because one is louder. On the other hand, the brained ones need to get louder, but in a good way. We have to make it clear that in this country nobody should be counted for tweeting “Nazis out”. We have to learn that we have to show the loud minority that it is really only a minority. And we have to recognize that we must not go down to a level that only makes the fronts harder. Learning to listen to each other’s arguments and then actually weighing them up as neutrally as possible, which is right now and which is not.

But for all of that, you need every single man and woman – especially in politics , The withdrawal of Habeck could be much worse than a personal withdrawal of a top politician. It could be a fatal signal for many others to follow suit. And that’s exactly why I hope that the Greens boss will take a deep breath, sleep over them for a few nights, get advice – and hopefully be seen on the social media stage in the future.