“Social media is rooted in the belief that open debate and the free flow of ideas are important values,” begins Nicholas Clegg, president of global affairs for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, in a post announcing the return of former president Donald J. Trump to both those wildly popular services after two years of exile.
How to characterize that statement? “A lie segueing into a mischaracterization” sounds about right.
First the lie. Think about your interaction with social media. How much would you characterize as “open debate”? Pretty much zero, right? Actual debate requires the notion of impartial assessment of verifiable reality. Each side offers arguments backed by facts — ”evidence,” we called it in middle school debate club. A judge would decide whose case is best and thus carries the day. You had to prepare a strong case because you knew your opponent would have a logical argument and solid evidence supporting their side.
Nobody is debating on social media because nobody is open to the possibility that the other side might have a point, never mind be right. And nobody is judging because everybody has already made up their minds, which perceive the living world in a state that too often borders on pure hallucination laced with bottomless malice. Opposing arguments are dismissed immediately in a blast of contempt.
Which leads us to Clegg’s mischaracterization, “the free flow of ideas.” Sure, ideas are free flowing on social media. (And here I’m struggling to find a metaphor that doesn’t involve diarrhea). Unimpeded flow isn’t the problem, it’s what is flowing that’s the trouble: an endlessly gushing firehose discharging every possible unfiltered thought, notion, lie and fantasy.
Example? This week MAGA-world decided that, well, let them explain:
“I believe that Damar Hamlin is dead unfortunately. We have yet to see his actual face there appears to be a clone,” announced one seer.
Or a robot. Or a body double. Died on the field. Of the COVID vaccine. Aggregate lifetimes were spent arguing about it online this past week. Right wing twitiot Stew Peters demanded Hamlin provide evidence of his continued existence, much like Trump crying for Obama’s birth certificate: “I want to see video of Damar Hamlin holding today’s newspaper with the date visible.” When Hamlin blocked him, Peters mocked the recuperating football star. “I used to think football players were tough” Peters pouted.
“Open debate” my foot.
It’s comforting to remember people have always argued the most palpable nonsense. You didn’t need social media to see Jesus’ face scorched on a taco and for thousands to rush over to venerate the transubstantiated tortilla. Before the actual miracle of a COVID vaccine became the favorite tetherball of the deranged, fluoridated water was the classic American conspiracy theory along the lunatic fringe. No social media necessary.
Fluoride research was conducted right here, by the way, in the 1940s. James Roy Blayney, a University of Illinois scientist, spiked the water of Evanston, using Oak Park as a control.
So if your teeth are real and in your mouth, and not false and in a glass on the night table, you might want to thank Blayney. Or, if you are of a certain bent, blame him for introducing “rat poison” into our drinking water, a conviction unshaken by it being safely consumed by billions of people for the better part of a century.
In 1954, Chicago became the first major city to fluoridate its water. But not before a circus-like City Council hearing. Protesters flung “holy water” before being muscled out by guards. Ald. Reginald DuBois (9th) spoke for 80 minutes, “a marathon vocal blast,” condemning the proposal as experimental “mass prescription” of poison. He worried the fluoride would corrode city water pipes. The parallels to COVID vaccine nuttiness would be funny, if they weren’t so sad.
Don’t blame Facebook. Trump’s return wouldn’t be a problem if the system worked and he were already in prison where he belongs. Clegg said “guardrails” will be in place and if Trump is so careless as to directly urge immediate violence, he’ll get the heave-ho again. Which is also disingenuous, since Trump is crafty enough to merely undermine every American institution and cherished value, from free elections and free speech to the Justice Department and the media, then let his followers take the next step.
The fault, dear reader, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is not in our social media, but in ourselves.
