Social Media Has Been As Beneficial To The Human Race As Alcohol, Heroin, AIDS & Nuclear Weapons
Why & How Social Media Has Fundamentally Harmed American Society
By David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)
The Evolution Of Mass Communications
No Mass Communications
Before the printing press, there was no mass communication. Most information was spread verbally, person to person.
Business-To-People Mass Communications
After the printing press humans had Business-to-People mass communication — books, newspapers, radio, television.
People-To-People Mass Communications
With the internet, we now we have People-to-People mass communication — individual, often anonymous, unvetted social media posts that, for profit, are promoted by the platform to millions of people who otherwise would never have seen that material.
The information can be anything from posts that might be as useful as ideas for parents who are dealing with a sick child or as toxic as ideas about why all Jews deserve to be killed.
The platform will blindly promote them all in the order of their level of sensationalism.
Fundamentals Of Business-To-People Mass Communication
Forty years ago most people received most of their information from curated, identified sources which followed policies and procedures designed to promote a medium to high level of factual accuracy.
You can site all the errors of Time Magazine, the New York Times, NBC, the Associated Press, etc. you like, but basically those news organizations generally required reasonable fact checking, multiple sources, general accuracy and identified reporters.
The Limited Ability Of B-To-P Mass Communications To Deliver Lies, Fear & Hate
Not all news from major sources was true and accurate, but the source of all of it was identified and most of it was mostly true. There was at least an institutional attempt to accurately report events.
Moreover, the publisher was known and the actual human who wrote the story was known. and both were subject to legal consequences for errors or lies.
Of course, there were smaller, information providers, the fringe media, who were heavily biased, but their customers were just a fraction of the population.
While anyone could theoretically publish a newspaper, the number of publishers was restrained by the financial cost both of publication and distribution, and their circulation was restrained by the practical difficulty of their media reaching a large percentage of the population.
All this meant that most of the American population shared a general idea of accepted conduct and accepted facts. Most of that conduct was within some ethical bounds and most of those facts were materially true. And when they weren’t true, the publisher could be held financially responsible.
While those holding fringe ideas were legally free to air their thoughts, as a practical matter they were unable to expose their problematic theories, lies and hate to a large percentage of the population.
The Communist Party’s Daily Worker could offer the communist point of view, but it was unable to convince any material percentage of the population to pay any attention to it.
The Flat Earth Society might publish a newsletter, but their ability to find others of a like mind who would subscribe to their beliefs was next to zero.
Fundamentals Of Unvetted People-To-People Mass Communication
Today, social media has made everyone a publisher without any requirements for disclosing the actual identity of the publisher, nor any desire for truth or accuracy, and without any consequences for disseminating lies and hatred.
The ability to hold some anonymous person who perhaps lives on the other side of the earth responsible for their lies is essentially zero.
Today, approximately half the population receives most of its information from social media which has no policies, procedures or interest in conveying accurate information or even disclosing the true identity of the human beings behind the post, and neither the platform nor society provide any effective mechanism to hold the publisher responsible for lies, fear and hate.
P-To-P Mass Communications Actively Helps Believers In Lies Fear & Hate Find Each Other
Before social media, the flat-earthers and the racists could not find each other. Social media now strives to help them find each other.
P-To-P Mass Communications Promotes & Amplifies Anonymous Lies, Fear & Hate To New Targets
Worse, social media platforms have a financial incentive to promote lies, fear and hate because sensationalism gets more engagement which makes them more money.
Social media profits from facilitating the publication of anonymous lies, fantasies and hate because social media platforms financially benefit by helping them expose and convert more people to their cause.
The platform helps anonymous publishers of lies, fear and hate deliver their message to millions who would never have otherwise seen it.
Lies, Fear & Hate
Mind Viruses
Like viruses that can infect a physical body, false accusations, lies, fear and hate infect human minds.
Less Experienced & Less Educated People Are More Susceptible
Also, like physical viruses, toxic-idea viruses are most easily believed by young people who have not yet learned to separate truth from lies, claims from facts, and emotion from logic.
As a person becomes more worldly, more educated, more exposed to varying opinions and ideas, the more they learn to be skeptical of sensational claims, the more they demand facts and proof.
The young, the naive, and the uneducated are far more likely to believe that something shocking is so just because someone says it is so. And the young respond more easily and emotionally to sensational or hateful ideas.
What is the average age for Al Qaeda recruits? Why do you think young people are more likely to sign up?
Social Media Trains People Not To Read
On top of all that, social media has trained people not to consider ideas in depth, not to read documents long enough to disclose the subtleties, contradictions, and consequences of ideas or policies.
When the ideas people ingest are limited to two or three sentences, those ideas are necessarily digital, black or white, without any details or proof beyond the mere claim itself because three sentences has no room for anything beyond the bare claim itself.
You can’t explain the origins, consequences and reduction of crime, inflation, unemployment, low wages, racism, etc. in two sentences.
A generation that forms its opinions and makes its political decisions based on two sentences, a generation that is unwilling to read a document that is long enough to actually explain how conditions occur, and why and how to counter them has little hope of choosing effective policies or wise leaders.
People whose information consumption is no more than three sentences long are doomed to make political and policy decisions based on whose social media post they read last and which one more strongly appeals to their emotions.
An Ignorant, Gullible Society Is Extremely Susceptible To Mind Viruses
A society that largely doesn’t read, doesn’t question, isn’t skeptical, and is driven by emotion will succumb to those toxic mind viruses like an unvaccinated population will fall victim to a plague.
The Germans didn’t do what they did because they were inherently evil. They did it because they were deliberately infected with the idea, the mental virus, that Jews had betrayed their country and that Jews were subhuman. Once that virus took root in their brains, their bodies happily embarked on their horrendous path.
Today, social media is a cauldron of toxic mind viruses that are delivered into the brains of susceptible hosts through the platform’s promotion algorithms which are designed to maximize attention on the most sensational, dishonest, hateful, and false ideas.
Combine that money-driven promotion of ever more outrageous lies with a population that is increasingly averse to reading, study, attention, and skepticism and you have a recipe for that society’s collapse into ignorance, rejection of facts and science, persecution of minorities, and totalitarian government.
Lies, Hate, & Fear Are Toxic Ideas & Toxic Ideas Have Toxic Effects
Because of social media, the American people today are fundamentally different, and American society today is fundamentally sicker, more vulnerable and more fragile than it has ever been in the history of the republic.
Summary
That combination of
- (1) everyone being given the tools to anonymously and widely disseminate their lies, hate and fear
- (2) no consequences or accountability for broadcasting lies, hate and fear;
- (3) an economic motive to promote the most sensational claims to millions of people who would otherwise never be exposed to them,
- (4) most of the recipients of these false and/or hateful ideas being young people who are more driven by emotion and are less educated, inexperienced and naive; and
- (5) a population that has been trained not to read more than two or three sentences and not to spend more than three minutes considering any idea
and you have a society that is susceptible to infection by toxic mind viruses that may well end with terminal results.
— David Grace (Amazon Page — David Grace Website)