ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter a tool for the Devil’s work, Todd writes
“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples and ages it is the rule.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 Collective evil, irrationality and shunning have been with us throughout history. But mass mania now has a new weapon: Social media, particularly Twitter.
What is going wrong with the inventive technology that once seemed to promise the enhancing of human interconnection and the free dissemination of information and ideas?
There might still be a positive role for Twitter, which boasts 321 million monthly users. But anyone paying attention is realizing Twitter and other social networks are becoming poisoned, with many fearing they’re devolving into forums for finger-pointing and division.
Whether it’s blustering Donald Trump insulting his many foes or sensitive university students trying to cancel the speaking rights of those with whom they disagree, Twitter is increasingly dominated by a vigilante mentality. The most nasty attack dogs are getting the most “likes.” To think some people once imagined that social media, particularly Twitter, were harbingers of a new form of grassroots egalitarian democracy.
Twitter is still capable of spreading valuable information fast: A study showed people on Twitter are more informed about society than people on Facebook. But that doesn’t mean Twitter’s malevolence isn’t advancing, particularly in developing countries that have to deal with tensions between ethnic and religious groups, where fear and fake news spread on platforms like Twitter are too frequently leading to mob attacks.
George Washington University technology expert Kalev Leetaru, who has advised Google and Yahoo, says the good used to outweigh the bad on Twitter.
Informed, thoughtful and insightful conversation was initially able to marginalize the trolls, self-aggrandizers, bots and polarizers.
But in recent years, some horrific voices bent on tearing society apart have seized hold of Twitter, particularly in repressive regimes. Meanwhile, in North America, not only do celebrities use their multi-million-follower reach to destroy critics, even supposedly rational academics now engage in “schoolyard taunts … and profanity-laden diatribes,” Leetaru says.
“What went wrong with the great social experiment that was social media’s promise to give voice to the voiceless and bring all of us across the world together?
“It is possible that toxicity and hate speech are key drivers of the success (of social media companies), creating the kind of virality and uninhibited freedom of expression that propels them into superstardom.”
Twitter and its ilk, says the internet pioneer, need more government intervention to curb their excesses.
It’s not new to characterize Twitter as toxic, but has it also become a “demonic” technology?
One doesn’t have to believe demons are supernatural beings to wonder if Twitter has allowed itself to become a tool of evil. Philosopher David Ray Griffin says demonic power is a kind of forcefield that can take hold during the process of evolution. He defines it as coercive, bent on destruction, based on hate and “not aimed at the good of all,” like the power that incites unnecessary wars against perceived enemies.
Regardless of whether one believes Twitter’s malignancy now fits such a naturalistic definition of demonic, Vancouver-based diversity specialist Alden Habacon is among those worrying about how social media, including Twitter, has become “a platform for things I don’t have time for: Bragging rights, self-promotion and shaming others.”
While it might sometimes be useful to shame organizations for being exclusive or intolerant, Habacon, who advises UBC and other organizations on diversity issues, said the kind of shaming that’s become the norm on Twitter cannot be our only tool for giving each other feedback.
“Shaming just creates a space where everyone feels they’re walking on eggshells, ironically, in the name of inclusion.”
Micro-blogging networks like Twitter are especially devastating to young North Americans, whom studies show are more anxious, lonely and prone to self-harm than previous generations.
New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt, co-author of a seminal article titled The Coddling of the American Mind, recently told a psychology journal that he has found “heavy users of social media have twice the rate of depression and anxiety as do light or moderate users.”
Young people, especially Generation Z (those born after 1994), moved into social media in their earliest years and are paying the psychological price, Haidt said.
“The effect is at least partly causal: People who stop or significantly reduce social media exposure experience gains in mental health.”
Since many North Americans have grown up with the double whammy of being highly protected and intensely exposed to social networks, Haidt maintains the combination has led to less tolerance of difficult or contrasting ideas. Many now just want to shut down opponents, and there is no better place to try to start such campaigns than on Twitter.
New York Times columnist David Brooks has noted the rising “cruelty of call-out culture,” which gives people the licence to be vengeful on Twitter, often over small slights or awkward phrasings, without acknowledging nuance, mutual humanity or even the facts. Twitter is replete with exaggeration and black-and-white thinking. It promotes dangerously simplistic ideas of victim and abuser, good and evil and primitive notions of who is “clean” and “unclean.”
It’s not overstating to ask if the tribalism seizing hold of many on Twitter is a threat to democracy. The former head of UBC’S journalism program, Stephen Ward, author of Ethical Journalism in a Populist Age, said democracy relies on respectful communication.
And many things must change for social media outlets like Twitter to become more rational, more pragmatically objective and less vulnerable to being taken over by the “enemy mindset,” says Ward, who highlights Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote about how easy it is for the masses to be captured by a kind of madness.
Journalism, at its best, is devoted to accuracy, fairness and balance. But those ethical guidelines don’t apply across much of Twitter, where many self-described citizen journalists are nothing more than propagandists. They’re more interested in advancing an us-against-them mentality than the uncomfortable truth that life is complicated, full of ethical greys.
Extreme outrage might get you more “likes” and “followers.” But a modicum of respect and humility are not outdated virtues, even on Twitter.
There might still be a positive role for Twitter ... But anyone paying attention is realizing Twitter and other social network sites are becoming poisoned, with many fearing they’re devolving into forums for finger-pointing and division. Douglas Todd
It’s not overstating to ask if the tribalism seizing hold of many on Twitter is a threat to democracy.