I want my social media to work like my face-to-face life. It doesn't! So, that leaves me with this reality. I can't stand how others think they have the right to criticize what I post.
This is supposed to be my space. I can post what I want. I can limit who sees it, etc., but frankly, I find going through that process to be bothersome...and why would I care about limiting the audience anyway. It is my space to do with as I please. I can share fun stories, pictures, videos, and more of my life, or whatever. I can share interesting articles I find. I can share interesting data, or satire, or other funny things I see. I can even share "fake news". Of course, sharing any news results in this outcome to some extent, but that's another post. This is supposed to work like the public space, yes? If I go out to dinner with three friends and we have a conversation, I might mention that I saw something in an article. You don't attack me for what I'm reading or where the article came from (most people don't share that information or even necessarily remember it when relaying the information). No, you confront the claim on its merits. Period. Not so online. People are quite annoying with their little fact check posts or condescending nonsense trying to demonstrate how superior they are by attacking the source, not the information. Frankly, I'm over it.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, my friends. They aren't criticizing something based on the merits, they are just attacking the source. The technology industry is bad enough, with their ridiculous fact check statements. It is hilarious (sort of) that I can post a 10 minute video and Facebook will flag it as false. You click on the flag and it says a certain statement made in the video is false. Said statement constitutes about 5 seconds of the 10 minute video and has little bearing on the point being made, but Facebook posts the false claim nonetheless...because it isn't about addressing the merits. They know most people won't ever read the attached "why" statement. So, they will just see the false flag and move on, or worse, call out the poster. This is the technology companies way to propagate fake news and misleading information. It is the same thing the newspapers have done forever. Don't tell the whole truth! Use adjectives to manipulate the reader! Cherry pick information (removing context as an example) to intentionally mislead. If you think the news industry doesn't do this, you need to read more...and not the news. These are age old tricks of the media and technology companies and fact checkers have proven themselves very worthy of carrying this mantle. Share just enough truth to get away with manipulating the audience into ignoring the plethora of additional facts.
Everyone has their preferred sources of information. The reality is that they are all biased or unreliable in some way. A think tank is biased in favor of their party or political position, intentionally so. A political organization or party is the same. A news organization is biased (regardless of their claims to the contrary). For instance, you might hear that MSNBC is a mouthpiece for the Democrat party (it is), that CNN is just the orange man bad network, or sometimes called Conspiracy News Network, or you might hear that FoxNews leans right, supports Republicans, or my favorite, is a neo-conservative mouthpiece (it is). A commentator is always espousing a point of view, but of course they use legitimate information in order to do so. Even journal articles, the end all be all of the scientific method, aren't always reliable. Some claim peer review can help mitigate this, and it sometimes does, but it also sometimes stifles legitimate research that doesn't fit the narrative the journal and its reviewers wish to present (yes, this is a thing). Even then, bias statements, methodologies, and data manipulation all have to be considered when looking at the article and its claims. For instance, if no bias statement is included, my first inclination is to place the information lower on the scale.
All information has to be evaluated, not based on the source alone, but on the information presented. One can argue there is a hierarchy of reliable sources. I wouldn't disagree. But that is only a part of the evaluation process. The information must also be considered, whether you like the source or not. The data, the methodology, the biases all come into play when considering information. Unfortunately, people are generally too lazy to actually do this, so they find themselves little short cuts they like to assist them. For instance, was the journal peer reviewed? Is this news source one I like and trust? (Don't trust any of them!) Is this political organization one I tribally identify with? This leads people down a lazy road of being able to dismiss any information that doesn't fall within the arbitrary criteria they've established for considering a source. Criticize the source and make yourself feel better and superior to those who posted from it, and the world can move on without you having your information or your tribalism challenged. This is the social media world.
Examples I've seen include things like "that source isn't legitimate (reliable, truthful, reputable, etc. [pick your adjective]" or "you should post the actual article/study rather than that video/article/source" [not always possible since they are sometimes behind pay walls] or "here's a fact check on that with link included [so not interested in a conversation, just want to be right]" or "you need to take that down because Facebook flagged it as false [Facebook and I are superior to you and you should do what I say]" or "that's a commentator, so it is just opinion [of course it is, care to consider someone's opinion?] or "I don't like that source because it is political [as opposed to a source that is political that agrees with you]".
All of these complaints are ridiculous. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so whether you personally feel a source is reputable is irrelevant. These statements contribute nothing, but rather they are simply attacking the source. It is legitimate to use the veracity of a source in your overall argument, it is lazy to dismiss the entirety of the information solely because of the source. If we did that, we wouldn't have interstate highways, since that brainchild came from Eisenhower who got the idea from the roads built by the Nazis. Next, who cares if a site is political. How is that different from information put out by a think tank or a political party? It isn't. Complaining that a source is political doesn't invalidate the information, it just shines light on bias (and everything has bias). Posting someone else's fact check is neither desired, nor particularly bright. It is a lazy way to engage. If that is all you have to offer, you might as well not bother engaging at all. Fine, you don't like the post or the source. Don't engage, but no...you have your fact checker (and they are God, are they not? Since you feel they are so much more trustworthy than your supposed friend you are using them to attack). No, fact check articles can be used solely to support a portion of a discussion or article, not as a lazy method of dismissing your friend's post. Finally, asking someone to take something down because it is false is condescending and rude. You don't know why they posted it in the first place. By pointing out that it isn't a good source demonstrates you assume the individual posting it is either too stupid to realize that or has fallen for some sort of imagined false information. You don't know that and to assume it from the start is condescending nonsense.
You would never have a face-to-face discussion with your friend that went like it does on Facebook. You are in a restaurant having a good discussion and a bit of information is brought up. You would consider the information and agree or refute that information based solely on its merits. You may ask questions to glean a greater understanding. In the end, you and your friend are closer for it. You wouldn't rudely declare that "this friend" is smarter than me and should be included in the conversation. You might say a friend said x, y, or z, but having a face-to-face like one "talks" on Facebook would result in a punch to the nose, or at the least, you wouldn't be friends for long. Also, during the discussion, you wouldn't call up another friend and then hand me the phone so they can berate my stupidity and then sit and watch as I become a target for your preferred friend. This happens all the time on shared forums like Facebook. It is a feature! To me, it is a distraction and designed to create division. I don't think being attacked by people I don't know is virtuous, rather, it lowers my opinion of the person I am following, particularly if they don't defend me when the attack turns ad hominem, as it always does when people you don't know are involved.
As far as I'm concerned, technology companies who put fact checks and false flags on their posts are behaving as if they are standing around the afore mentioned restaurant and come running over when you bring something up to make sure that those seated with you are aware your information needs correcting in some way! How big brother of them. It is atrocious. They are either a platform or a publisher. If they are a platform, then they are the public square and shouldn't censor anyone or anything. If they are a publisher, then they are liable for what is posted and should censor, just as I can do with my posts. But the way it is now is nothing short of thought police. The fact that these thought police aren't government makes them feel good about their right to censor my first amendment right. It is our platform, we can do what we want because we are a private company. Really? According to that logic, we all need to return to the days of segregated businesses.
It is bad enough the technology industry, politicians, and celebrity busy bodies believe they have the right to tell people what they can and can't say or post, but when your friends do it? Well, people who do this to their friends online aren't "helping them". They are annoying, lazy, condescending, and frankly rude.
