It would seem that Facebook, now officially embarrassed by their having been used to influence elections, is now willing to be used to…influence society. Thank you, that’s SO much better. Silicon Valley seems increasingly interested in helping “the right people” decide what we can view.
Meanwhile we have a president calling out and insulting media (but doing nothing more than that–show me one actual policy or law he has instituted to inhibit the press), claiming they are colluding against him–and they respond by coordinating an editorial attack on him.
Meanwhile Twitter is experimenting with attempting to filter misinformation and expose us to alternative points of view. Sounds great, right? But who gets to determine what is misinformation and which alternative points of view to push?
Look, as much as I dislike the nasty sea of alternate truth that is the Internet, the last thing I want is someone else deciding for me what I will or won’t see. We already get enough of that. In fact, that’s a large part of the problem!
A friend of mine recently posted a stirring defense of journalism on her Facebook feed, and I agree with her–to a point. Journalism IS important. It’s critical to a free society. The problem is that so much of what passes for journalism these days is not really journalism. It’s entertainment. It’s opinion. The media increasingly doesn’t trust us to weigh the facts and decide for ourselves–not even “we report, you decide” Fox News does that. Everything must be given a particular spin to make sure we don’t miss the most important details that will ensure we interpret the story correctly.
Not every journalist is guilty, of course. There are many who still believe what they were taught in their beginning journalism courses of unbiased reporting. There are some who will go after the establishment, whoever the establishment may be, whenever something doesn’t add up or someone is abusing their power. Those journalists need our support and appreciation.
But the majority of the talking heads we hear about these days have an agenda, and they let that agenda guide their choices. And that’s how we get reporting about a protest of a few dozen and a counter-protest of a few thousand–one that ended in violence, vandalism, and a a death last year–and the focus is on how there were far more police than the media thought were necessary and seemed to be going out of their way to protect the smaller group from the larger instead of focusing in on the actions of all parties involved. That larger protest group hardly acquitted itself well in the eyes of normal citizens, but most of use never even heard about that part of the story.
Is it any wonder at least one commentator claims that modern journalism is all about deciding the most important stories to cover–with a pillow until they stop breathing?
When we have a media who not only feels they are best qualified to decide what we should and shouldn’t hear about, but how we should feel about what they do cover it’s very hard not to consider them an enemy. Perhaps they’re not the enemy, but they’re certainly not our friend. They are manipulating us as much as any politician. And both media and politicians are pressuring the big tech companies to atone for their big-ness and rich-ness by backing them up on their plans to further ensure we’re only allowed to see what they deem fit.
Never has the term “Nanny State” been so apt. Everyone wants to do our thinking for us.