Social Media Kills. I’d like this slogan on a sweat shirt, especially after that school teacher was beheaded in France. It turns out this week that one of his students, who wasn’t even in class that day of his alleged offence, lied to her father, who then, I suspect, lied on social media—It’s a truism that haters end up exaggerating and outright lying. Now the father and “a Muslim preacher” will “face charges of complicity.” Too late for the teacher. (Link to BBC)
If only that father, and his outraged social media followers on the Internet, had given peaceful honest media a chance.
Traditional media—which I still see as normal media—while being dedicated to reporting objective truth, would have used tools such as attribution: “according to a 13 year old girl …,” and balance: “but another student said …,” and background: “the teacher explained …,” and responsible investigation: which would have likely led to discovering the child had lied.
Incidentally, the reason for balance is partly to keep from accidentally editorializing by solely reporting “what every right-thinking American believes.” Such innocence is understandable, but as a fictional character said, for matters of life or death, “The side of the angels is seldom self evident.” Even when all followers believe. Hence ethical editors believe in the mighty trinity of truth, balance and attribution.
I realize many people have an emotional vested interest in believing in social media over normal media, including a dear friend of mine with a university degree. But still.
Of course democracy needs media, along with freedom of information and speech. And I relish the excitement of computer nerds saying that blogs and social media will lead us to brave new world: just imagine all those cool citizens commenting. (As if they couldn’t comment in pre-digital times) But to expect average people walking the street to have a stern Puritan journalism ethic, the way reporters and their editors do, is as foolish as expecting a small town, or a big factory, to not have lazy gossip, while we know gossip morphs and becomes false—or even starts out as false. Some people lie. Some alleged “humans” are born as trolls, others are half-humans who get jobs (prose link) on Russian troll farms. (Video link for Finns fighting trolls)
We all like passion. But when social media stokes my passion for woke outrage, or my anti-Black racism, or my prejudice against non-Muslims, then I have a grownup responsibility: To balance this ever-so-attractive outrage by checking with traditional news first, before I take drastic action, no matter how boring real news is. “Just the facts Ma’am.” By now, of course, the word is out that some social media folks, and some big tech companies, will use us, by using our emotions, such as outrage, to get their fake things forwarded. In other words, for their own short term gain, versus all of us having a long term healthy community.
Sometimes, believing in social media is it’s own punishment. Like when fourteen people passed around a bottle, filled with vinegar and such, that was supposed to be proof against getting covid. Rather than checking first with real media, they all drank. One of them had covid, then they all had it.
Other times the harm, from those who don’t believe in normal media, is put onto normal people. I’m thinking of Europe where little old ladies with covid lay in hospital. In the last days before they died of a broken heart, in sterile lonely isolation, they couldn’t talk with their loved ones by cell phone—because the local cell tower had been destroyed. Dozens of such masts were set on fire by social media followers who believed that cell masts cause covid. “It must be true or they wouldn’t have forwarded it.”
If I might crib from Abraham Lincoln: Social media kills when France is on its fifth republic, and an idealistic teacher is murdered for his being dedicated to ensuring that this time around, “all the French children here be highly resolved that this nation shall not lose freedom again…”
…
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Sean Crawford,
welcoming your comments if, and only if, you don’t destroy your fellow-reader’s sense of community;
You know, just like how my dad could disagree very strongly with my latest crazy -ism without pushing me away from him.
March
2021
Footnotes:
~“The side of the angels is seldom self-evident” was said in the novel Friday (by Robert A. Heinlein) by the fictional head of an American spy agency, as part of explaining why (despite the C.I.A.’s example in Chile) he would think very carefully before ever ordering any assassinations. It may be relevant that Heinlein lived in one of the U.S. Civil War “border states.”
~To me, the excitement of the nerds and —“We’re not nerds!”— lovers of social media, is symbolized by the 402 page (hardcover) book blog! (Note the informal lower case, and the exclamation mark) of interviews and essays of many contributors. The subtitle (still all lower case) is how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture …One of the interview subjects was Star Trek’s (and Big Bang Theory’s) Wil Wheaton, (wilwheaton.net) who decided he was a writer, not an actor.
~Needless to say, I’m not prejudiced against any race, religion or creed: I have shared a bachelor pad with a devout member of a South Asian religion; shared a townhouse with a woken up communist; and shared good friendship with nice nonMuslims, friends whom I would never despise for being nonbelievers, no sir, not me.
