Article content continued
This wouldn’t be dangerous, except that social media has also let us find and knit together pockets of support in ways only the most resourced would have been able to in the past. We’ve opened the means of communication up to the masses and it turns out a lot of the masses are jackasses. Boat rally, anyone?
And while the promise of social media was always that it would give experts with little profile a voice, we now know these platforms give the shoutiest, sharpest and most indignant takes the biggest share of voice because those things sell. You say coronavirus is a hoax? Welcome to your masses. Think we should follow medical advice? Crickets. So, how long will industries such as politics and the media persist with the hellscape of social media?
Having tried to kick the habit once and failed, I’m not in the best position to advise. Nor am I always temperate on platforms such as Twitter. What worries me most now is that my first instinct is to indulge my emotion, not calibrate or advance a debate in any meaningful way. I’m not helping. And absent strong action from social media platforms on the plumbing, things won’t get better.
Most days, I don’t think people even read the stuff they share around social media. I’ll wager I could file a blank column, craft a snarky tweet about Justin Trudeau to sell it, and get mondo shares. Why can’t the Twitters and Facebooks of this world make you prove you’ve read the link before you share it? Or, heaven forfend, make you put your name to your account if you want to disseminate info?
