Muting Morons on Facebook: A Story of Love and Hate
We all have that Facebook friend.
The one who can’t stop going on about their wedding, children, pets, and cooking. How hard school is, how depressing work is, how they need to get away.
You scroll through your feed for months. The king, queen or other of what no one cares about posting the same stuff no one cares about again and again to the point that you feel personally victimized.
I think my vendettas are showing.
What do you do? Delete them? Try to continue ignoring them until you stop using the website altogether trying to save a bridge from burning?
Or, maybe you’re like me.
I use that handy mute-feature like a sieve, shaking out the sand and stones searching for the gold underneath.
Offered by many social media platforms, muting hides posts from unsuspecting online-orators, leaving them none the wiser.
It’s the passive-aggressor’s dream.
But, not all uses of this heaven-descended feature are as innocent, or as petty, as these.
I’ve muted the religious, the political, and the overly-moral.
I’ve muted discriminators, bigots, and slur slingers.
Trumpites, select 4Channers, and shitposters. All have fallen under Mute’s mighty hammer. Whatever the goals or ideologies, they all meet the end of new parents and newlyweds: muting.
I silence any hint of intolerance, hate, and narrow-mindedness. I’ve silenced the other.
Alright, this might sound like a bit much. I mean, everyone at some point allows the pleasure of like-company, of the illusion that we were right all along.
But I can’t shake that dictator feeling. The inkling that I’m censoring reality in favour of my own, how I wish the world operated. Like Big Brother or something.
I know others do this. I know that there are billions of little worlds constructed on Facebook and Twitter feeds across the globe.
I know people who must do this, who’re crippled by anxiety when someone proposes the Mexico-US “wall” as a great idea.
We live among infinite options. Whose facts to believe, whose opinions to listen to, even whose news to watch.
I saw a clip of MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid discussing Trump’s alleged comments about Haiti and other, what he called, “shithole” countries. Among the three panelists was Stephanie Hamill, self-claimed political junkie and advisor for the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, as per her Twitter profile.
When Hamill is called upon to give her opinion, she’s quickly silenced by Reid, calling her a conspiracy theorist. In her defense, Hamill’s comments were pretty conspiracy-ey.
Hamill’s comments didn’t strike me, though. It was how easily she was dismissed, though she was invited to speak.
In fact, Hamill was silenced in favour of the other two panelists, Reid stating that she would let the other women speak because “they know how we do things here.” Namely, on MSNBC’s self-identified “politically-progressive” network.
The baffled looks on the other two panelist’s faces made this video go viral, and perfectly encapsulates our fragmented, hyper bipartisan reality.
I won’t argue for a “truth” in this or similar examples. Who’s right isn’t the point.
Muting hinders critical thought. Unchallenged views see no development and are left to fester as facts without filter.
But, oh well, we say. I listen to others’ opinions. I’m politically informed. What can ignoring some asshole on Facebook hurt?
Beside our averted eyes prejudice and anger grow behind the mute function.
On January 29th, 2017 in our purportedly non-violent and gun-free nation, a Québec City mosque, the largest in the municipality, was attacked by a 27-year-old gunman, leaving 6 dead and at least 19 injured.
Nearly a year ago, news outlets across Canada still can’t seem to get away from one glaring issue: the perpetrator’s social media presence.
Then RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson warned “about ‘non-classic’ terrorism that feeds on hate and controversy on social media.”
In the wake of the attack like this, the public eye fixes on the internet.
Paulson seems to imply here that awareness of “non-classic terrorism” present in social media must be carefully monitored for the purposes of prevention.
But what can we do about it? Or, worse, what have we already done?
In an era where social media posts become breaking news, it’s hard to imagine that the mute function has very much effect.
Muting in social media is the active rejection of the other. While bystanding has been frequently offered as a passive reaction to an ongoing event or circumstance, it has been proven time and again that ignorance is an act.
The silencing of others through social media is merely a concrete example of what has occurred systemically: the denial of one understanding of our shared reality to reinforce another.
Traditionally, the bystander effect has been used to explain indifference in the face of atrocities such as the Holocaust and The Rawandan Genocide. In this context, bystanding effectively silences victims and shields perpetrators of violence.
This effect is arguably more difficult today, as social media and the internet, ideally, gives everyone an equal voice. However, the mute function denies this luxury to those who may desperately need a platform to speak, for better or for worse.
The result of this silencing is isolation: of those who are trying to speak, and those who refuse to listen.
The segregation of individuals and communities through a mute function on Facebook may seem like a bit much, and the muting of a friend or family member on Facebook probably won’t perpetuate violence by itself.
However, how easily we silence the Other is powerful. As our world continues to orbit online spaces, we need to be aware of what we do and don’t allow ourselves to see and hear.
Closing the tab or muting a poster has become a means by which we regulate knowledge.
Maybe I’ll reconsider muting my racist Uncles. Or maybe not.
