First of all, and I cannot stress this enough, Facebook and other social media platforms have been weaponized to create division both at home and abroad. I will include a link to a report regarding this at the end of this post, but, trust me, there is more than one organization corroborating this conclusion.
That being said, I ask you to please be aware of what you share on social media. I don’t want you to go overboard with political correctness, but just think about what you share before you hit “post.” Yes, most of us now subscribe to the philosophy, “If you don’t agree, keep scrolling,” but I will posit to you that this still does not adequately address the division that can be exacerbated by social media.
Case in point. Last week was the anniversary of the Parkland massacre, where 14 students and 3 adults lost their lives in a senseless mass shooting in their school. I myself was recently subject to a lockdown at my school because someone had been spotted nearby with a gun. It was terrifying. Imagine how I felt on the eve of the Parkland anniversary when a friend of mine posted a video of someone expounding on the 2nd amendment and how, “They want to take our guns away.” It not only struck me as tone deaf, it made me realize how utterly divisive my carefully curated feed continues to be.
I cherish my friends – I think most of them are intelligent and thoughtful individuals – and it hurts my heart to see some of them unwittingly participating in this ongoing war, because it IS a war, to fracture our country along not just partisan lines, but also between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, pro-life and pro-choice, pro-immigration and anti-immigration – the list goes on and on. I’m as human as the next person, sometimes I get lazy and post in haste, but I do try to go back and correct or clarify as needed.
I’m not saying that I’m better than anyone else – I have many friends much more assiduous than I in policing their posts. But I think if we all work together, we can make social media a pleasant place to be again, instead of an insidious battlefield controlled by malicious actors who are not friends to us or our country.
I’m trying to post a lot more dog pictures and recipes, and good news stories when I come across them. I’m going to try to limit my more controversial material to these blog posts, once a week or so, in order to try and restore harmony to my own feed. I hope you’ll join me in trying to make Facebook, and other social media sites, a better place.
PS – I cannot guarantee that I will not rant about particularly boneheaded actions taken by the current administration or Congress. But I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.
Here’s that link I promised: https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/04/12.html
Have a great week!
Master of None 