In Social Media, the Only Winning Move is Not to Play.
This is the second in a series for Conspicuous Privacy’s 2016 Privacy Professional’s Book Club.
Every time I casually scroll through my Facebook feed, I know that I’m doing social media wrong. Hundreds of millions of comments, thoughts, statuses, opinions being liked and shared and posted — and so little of it by me. I signed up for the Participatory Internet just like everyone else but ultimately failed to find that spark that makes me want to … participate. Instead, social media is purely OPP for me (other people’s posts). I get to see which of my friends had their baby, which ones are going bald, which ones took a trip to Brazil and saw Christ the Redeemer.
I’m jealous of these people. They have an effortlessness in posting their opinions and experiences in a public way that I know I will never possess. After some introspection on what makes me like this, I’ve come to two conclusions as to why I don’t wholeheartedly participate in social media:
First, I never think anything I post is going to be that interesting to others.
Second, I’m terrified that something I post will haunt me forever.
This isn’t a far-fetched fear. The Internet is an ancient civilization that requires blood sacrifice every few months. Jon Ronson brings my terror to life in his book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, where he interviews people who have been drawn and quartered by Internet outrage and shame.
Some of these people earned their shaming from their own misdeeds — one suffers a public and embarrassing sex scandal, another sees his pop-science book career implode after he’s caught plagiarizing and inventing sources. Still others — and this is what terrifies me — seem to be victims of simple mistakes, bad timing, and poor attempts at humor. Justine Sacco, of “just kidding I’m white!” fame, is perhaps the best example. One moment you’re posting a bawdy and self-aware joke on Twitter to your 170 followers, the next you are the number one trending topic with a ravenous Internet audience waiting for your firing papers to be delivered. Another example are the guys who lost their jobs after joking about ‘dongles’ at a tech conference. An off-handed and perhaps inappropriate joke among friends leading to embarrassment and unemployment. For Adria Richards, the woman who called out the dongle-jokers on Twitter, her life has been destroyed by Internet outrage since the story broke. It’s not enough for social media to tell you they disagree with you — they have to make sure you pay for your mistake with real pain, duress, and financial hardship.
“We are about to watch this @JustineSacco bitch get fired. In REAL time. Before she even KNOWS she’s getting fired.”
For the first time in history, our celebrities and world leaders are accessible by the everyday man and woman thanks to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat — they have democratized access to the elite. As a downside, the public fall from grace that was once reserved for our celebrities and politicians is now available for everyone. When I was younger, I used to think I’d never live down the embarrassing things I said or did. I was lucky Facebook wasn’t around. For the Internet-Infamous, they now have a mob of dedicated Internet commenters to guarantee they never live down their mistake.
How do you avoid this fate? What can you do to make sure you are never on the receiving end of Twitter’s gun barrell? Jon Ronson’s advice is the most profound conclusion in the book:
Be boring.
Be bland.
Ronson’s social media advice is that we treat social media like an opinionated uncle at Thanksgiving — keep the conversation light and agreeable. Nothing too deep, too controversial, or too bawdy. Toe the line.
Taken to its logical extreme, Ronson’s advice is to adopt social media practices just like mine — don’t participate. Stay out of the conversation, it’s the best way to protect yourself from attack, from unemployment, from a shaming. Ronson’s book challenged me to think about the long-term effects of such a strategy, not for myself but for the millions of millions of people who sit on the sidelines as well. What happens when a significant swath of the public decides that the best way to ‘win’ social media is to be bland?
Conformity. If a large proportion of people fear rocking the boat, you’ll start to see more and more conformity to certain acceptable talking points. Black or white, no gray. What could have been a thoughtful article about immigration reform is condensed to a 140-character spurt of opinion. We do this because nuance is controversial. Nuance makes you think you opinions may not be 100% flawless. You see this when people cast criticism toward U.S. foreign policy (IF YOU HATE THIS COUNTRY JUST LEAVE) or when people suggest police reform their practices (WHY DO YOU HATE POLICE??). Any nuance swings the needle completely to the extreme. No one wants to hear about the grey areas in public opinion — better to keep your opinions tidy and aligned to acceptable norms. Pick a side.
A great example (that I’m asked often as a privacy professional) is Snowden. Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor?
The answer is yes.
But it takes too much effort (and potential for hurt feelings) to try to explain such an opinion on social media. Instead, many people just choose not to contribute at all, and the Internet can score another win for polarization. I fear this because it’s human nature to conform to the expectations of our peers. Studies have shown how “being watched” significantly affects the behavior of a population — we behave more cooperatively. In one study, a company break room was set up where prices for coffee, tea, and baked goods were posted above a donation box for employees. On the honor system, employees would put money in the box in accordance with the suggested prices. In this study, a pair of human eyes were photocopied on the top of the price sheet — effectively looking down on any coffee-seeking employee. What they found is that employees would pay 2.7 times as often for their drinks when the eyes are posted than when they weren’t. Being watched (even by inanimate objects) makes people conform to certain expected standards of behavior. When the angry mob of the Internet is ready to pounce on your post, you can bet a lot of people second-guess challenging the standard talking points.
What’s the solution? I don’t have one. Maybe the next generation (that grew up with social media) will have a better system of supporting personal non-traditional opinions without fire and brimstone from the Internet mob. Until then, I’m content to break out of the 140-character boundaries and post nuance here on Medium. On Facebook, I’ll just keep taking my ball and going home.
Starting on International Data Privacy Day (January 28th), Conspicuous Privacy will be initiating Privacy Professional’s Book Club for 2016. Feel free to join the conversation as we look into captivating fiction and non-fiction on privacy, technology, and society. The next book we’re discussing is Franz Kafka’s The Trial.
January 2016: The Circle by Dave Eggers
February 2016: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
