It Fills My Heart With Sadness to Witness the Rage on Social Media

This newsletter is supported by your generous tips! Upgrade at 30% offI saw a post criticizing Megan Rapinoe and foolishly left a response in her defense. “She’s an American champion and a heroic public figure,” I wrote.Later on, I discovered that the individual who posted the initial criticism had over 200k followers. The next morning, I awoke to find them coming after me like a swarm of bees. My notification tab overflowed with hateful comments that I scrolled through in disbelief.I’m stubborn enough that it takes more than the outrage of two hundred thousand people to convince me I’m wrong when I know that I’m right. But I’m fearful of the effect unfiltered insults and threats might have on the minds of vulnerable people still struggling to find their place in the world.It’s an artificial influence, and the general public deserves to be protected from the destructive effects of misinformation and hate propaganda.The social media hive mind is not representative of the human raceDespite the fact that the responses purportedly came from different accounts, it felt like confronting alternate aspects of the same hive mentality. The comments didn’t feel as if they’d been written by unique individuals. Instead, they seemed more like shadowy echoes of one another. There was no disagreement between any of them. They were united in hatred.“How dare you call somebody who hates America a ‘hero.’ You need to seek help.”Hates America?Hateful people accusing others of hatred has become the calling card of modern society. Every comment gets escalated to such an extreme level that decent people are trained not to offer an opinion at all.I suspect that’s the point.The nazi apologists who accuse others of being nazisThe comments were a mix of outrage, insults, and misinformation. One post accused members of the US Women’s Soccer Team of “giving the nazi salute” which was complete nonsense, but was also oddly contradictory.In the profile bios, you’d find unsettling endorsements of racism such as “proud sister of the Confederacy” and whatnot. Pro-nazi propaganda also lurked for anyone familiar with the coded language they use.We live in a culture where nazi sympathizers spread misinformation accusing innocent people of their own twisted affiliations. They must know that the source doesn’t matter as long as the accusation is damaging enough.I hardly know how to respond to that.The false promise of social mediaI’ve been at this long enough to know that social media is a complete lie. It’s presented as a “business tool” that you can use to “organize your community” or “promote your brand.” But that’s not its actual purpose.In my opinion, social media is nothing more than a mechanism of social engineering. In many cases, I don’t believe audiences are allowed to select what information they are exposed to. Instead, the platform dictates what you see.I’m afraid that many social media platforms demonstrate a commitment to misrepresenting fringe beliefs as mainstream. This is why hatemongers develop 200k followings and rational people don’t receive any engagement.Social media is not a means of escaping economic hardshipEverybody is desperate for cash in the United States. That’s the framework that makes abuse and oppression possible. We’re so occupied with scrambling for money that we don’t have time to contemplate or fight the various ways we’re being exploited.“You’ve got to earn your keep!”Poverty shaming is the norm, especially on social media. The poverty shaming memes regularly alternate with the ones about Jesus.Massive crowds are attracted by the impression that a huge social media following might give them the means of achieving financial security.For most people, social media is like accepting an entry-level job for minimum wage at a corrupt corporation. You’re never getting promoted, and you’ll be condemned to waste your time toiling in obscurity forever.The illusion of fairness is necessary to maintain systems of oppressionThe reality of our society is that few people are fairly compensated for their labor. The oppressive power structure hides behind the narrative that people “aren’t working hard enough.”When humans take the time to get together and talk about it, they realize the prevailing messages of our society aren’t true. Therefore, oppressors have figured out a way to install a filter that prevents the free sharing of information.Today, oppressors control virtually all means by which narratives are spread. They control everything we talk about! No matter how long you zombie scroll on social media, you’ll NEVER find anything accurate, educational, or informative.It’s just an endless stream of hate, hate, hate!A free society requires the free sharing of perspectivesIf people have the opportunity to organize, they succeed in constructing a fairer society for themselves. It’s easy to incite somebody to hate a random social media profile. It’s a lot harder to incite somebody to hate a person they see face-to-face on a daily basis.We don’t see our neighbors anymore. We walk on by with our noses buried in our phones perpetually zombie scrolling through misinformation selected by our social media overlords.Social media creates the appearance that there is more opportunity for communication and organization than in any point in history. I would contend that we are actually less inclined or able to engage in productive discourse than we were even twenty years ago.Our “communications platforms” have killed our ability to communicate. We’ve surrendered without a fight.Social media determines the outcome of electionsTo a large extent, social media is contributing to the normalization of hatred. It has an influence on our elections. It has an influence on what your neighbors believe.What starts out as zombie scrolling has an impact on your day-to-day life.It’s pretty obvious that this is happening, but our government is appallingly indifferent about doing anything to protect the population from this threat.Let’s have some laws to stop the spread of misinformation! I’m tired of dealing with people who tell me nothing but lies.Some groups are denied the benefits of social influenceI’ve been at this long enough that I know my writing generates an audience when people have the opportunity to read it. I started off placing articles in magazines, and I’d get positive feedback directly from readers. I’ve worked as an editor for large publications, and I’ve signed book deals with a couple small publishers. I’ve developed pretty large followings on a variety of platforms. The point is, when people see my work, they’re often inclined to choose it over the competition.That being the case, I’ve wasted a lot of time on a variety of social media platforms where I seemed to languish forever with only a couple hundred followers. It didn’t matter if I had articles going viral elsewhere on the internet, the needle on my social media presence never moved.Meanwhile, some spittle-spewing hate monger who writes at a 1st grade level “organically” gets 200k followers? I’m not buying it.Your message is important!What bothers me is that I suspect there are a lot of very good writers and humanitarians who give up because they see that they can’t make any traction on social media.They don’t recognize that maybe their viewpoint is being maliciously buried because they keep writing about kindness, equality, tolerance, and the importance of human dignity.They’re not failing because they’re not good. They’re failing because oppressors who control the means of communication are sabotaging them.The one platform they do want to banIt’s interesting that the only social media platform that there’s serious discussion about banning is the one that’s owned by China. Politicians see a threat there because it’s a platform that’s not owned by an entity they can control.It’s infuriating that there’s no discussion in our media about the authoritarian impulse to prevent the free flow of information. We need some protections! We need some assurances that messages people actually want to hear have a chance of seeing the light of day.It seems to me that about a year ago there were a lot more videos of police brutality circulating on social media. Now, not so much. I don’t believe those videos have disappeared because of any reduction in police violence. I believe it’s because the means of disseminating information has tightened up to deny regular, working-class people the ability to expose the prevalence of oppression in our society.To its credit, social media was the one place where you could go to find videos of police oppression. Televised news media usually disregards those stories until pressure from social media forces the issue. Now, those videos are less likely to be seen.If foreign-owned platforms are banned, that will be one less place where violent oppressors might be exposed. This is the other side of the issue that needs to be discussed, and which is almost always left out of the conversation.Go old schoolHuman beings are resilient, and they find a way around authoritarianism eventually. From the very moment somebody first invented a lock, clever minds began working on how to spring the mechanism.It’s important to recognize that there are obstacles confounding our ability to communicate with each other.The struggle before us can feel overwhelming at times, but remember that the oppressors have not (as of yet) figured out a way to halt old school communication. The Constitution still protects our right to assemble. There’s value in getting together with other human beings and discussing what might or might not be true.Perhaps the way forward is to train our children to seize control of their mechanisms of communication. Kids gather in small groups in the playground to talk. No invisible force influences their conversations by deleting comments that don’t help maintain the existing system of oppression.Communicate with people not profilesWe need to start teaching our children the importance of protecting the ability to disseminate valid information. It’s offensive that this concern is absent from our social discourse.Today, the problem that confronts us is that hatemongers have unfettered access to a world platform. Peacekeepers and humanitarians are attacked, silenced, and censored.We must reverse this trend. We have to defend our human right to communicate the messages that will cultivate prosperity and reduce suffering. Right now, it feels like the general public is being force-fed a constant barrage of hate speech that nobody wants to hear.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! 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