We should examine those who create the means of communication through their shortsighted visions, motivated by delusions of grandeur and monetary reward before thinking-through the ramifications on their potential consumers and society as a whole.

If those who created the social media platforms used widely from the early 2000’s through today had given just a little thought on how their websites would impact our methods of talking to each other, things today could’ve been a whole lot different. When the technology of cloning was being discussed, scientists and ethicists debated for years, not whether it could be done but should it.

For example, immature, forward thinking-challenged Harvard students created what we now call Facebook (Facemash.com) as a means of ranking the physical attributes of campus women. Odds are the males doing the ranking did so under the protection of cowardly anonymity.

From MySpace through YouTube through Facebook through Twitter, if users were required to provide their verified real name, verified age, most recent portrait and city location to initially “sign up”, just imagine how conversations would be conducted today as the abused shield of anonymity would not be a factor.

Because their identity would be a public and could be scrutinized by family members, friends, employers, and law enforcement if necessary, a mob of the anonymous would not exist to pressure anyone to say or take back anything they didn’t want to do. In far too many instances today, a person who says something on Facebook or Twitter is inundated with tens of thousands of virulent responses from “people” who may or may not have piled on if their friends and family (who may not agree with their take) could see not only their message but how they chose to respond.

Would most parents object to a son or daughter telling someone they didn’t know to go kill themself? Probably.

Would an employer have a problem with an employee posting an obscenity to a local politician who could directly and adversely affect their business? Probably.

But when someone can say some of the most vile things to another person that they’d never have the guts to say to their face, it emboldens the coward, emboldens the mob mentality, and the negative results are documented.

When people using aliases can now do criminal activities to others and/or their property and can broadcast it all live purely for the sake of hundreds of thousands of “likes”, it dehumanizes those they victimize and inspires the copycats as well as those who wish to take things further.

Unfortunately, the toothpaste is out of the tube. The arrogant bully can create any name not his or her, any graphic representation not of their true likeness, and can jump right in and ramp up any issue they want at any person they wish and make that person act and think the way they want them to. Should that person succumb to the demands of the empowered anonymous, the cowards are again emboldened to look for the next they wish to victimize. If it results in apologies, that becomes the next “trending” success narrative. If it results in a suicide, retrospection and apologizes are optional. If it results in violence, those who cheered events on can now pivot and pile on to whichever side convenient to their narcissism.

We will not have a return to a semblance of civility in society until social media realizes their platforms are THE major contributing factor and a total reboot is past due.

Until the cowardly anonymous are disarmed and thus held responsible for what they post on all platforms, we will see people’s careers destroyed, businesses impacted, and violent responses on the uptick. Those who hide behind false names will continue to tell us all how THEY want us to think and express ourselves or else or face a merciless horde.

Just a couple short generations ago, we didn’t experience the incivility seen today because we were social media. We didn’t have the luxury of being able to tell everyone we knew, and hundreds more we’ve never met face-to-face, something negative about someone we knew or never met. Speech required introspection. We had to know if it was something we really wanted to say to someone’s face and if we really wanted it known that it was said.

In other words, we were held responsible for what we said and it actually forced us to think if it was something that should be said at all.

Today, throw all that out the window. Comments are now impulsive, at times not well thought out if at all, and can be issued by people who can’t be personally identified and held accountable. Showing their real cowardice, they can delete their posted attacks after the damage is done, free to move on to their next subjects.

Social media has empowered the gutless and when the weak can destroy the strong, we have a really fucked up mess to fix.

Nations are run by those who initially portray themselves as the more level-headed amongst us, yet wars are initiated by the very “educated” elites who never have to pick up a weapon themselves and their words lead to consequences that have profound ramifications for those they call the “collateral”. But for the most part, prior to the public accessibility to the Internet in the very early 2000’s, people wouldn’t say to others what they wouldn’t say to their face.

Then came MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

People could create an account, create a fictitious name, an avatar that was whatever physical representation that person wanted, and they can now add to the public debate in any fashion they wish; for the positive or negative. The effects vary between a classmate hounded by hundreds to businesses that have to alter their business models because of a real or false misstep, ramped up by a social media campaign of thousands of people; many who hide behind anonymity and some who may not even exist.

Some people fool the public into making us believe they’re more relevant than they really are.

Famous people on social media—actors, models, athletes, influencers—like to brag about the size of their follower count. But a New York Times investigation published Saturday found that a number of those celebrities buy at least a portion of their social media followers. At the center of the investigation was Devumi, a company that allegedly sells what the Times calls “amplification bots,” which follow the accounts of paying customers and are programmed to like and retweet their missives. The company also claims it can help its customers get more views on YouTube videos, more listens on SoundCloud and more endorsements on LinkedIn.
— Newsweek, 1/29/18

Today, we’ll have an incident and a participant can almost instantly become the center of the news cycle based purely on the amount of times his or her social media “message” is repeated. We’d like to believe the sharing is organic, but we also know numbers can be rigged to the benefit of a cause, even to crowd-funding financial benefit.

Unfortunately, the toothpaste can’t be put back into the tube and at the onset of the use of social media, anyone who signed up for an account had to display their actual name and portrait (preferably no more than a couple years old). As many of us would never approach someone bigger, get in their face and let loose with personal, unrestrained expletives, the anonymity of social media has provided cover for cowards those who have little respect for the feelings of others, bolstered by the possible false impression that those sentiments are shared by thousands, if not more.

Men normally don’t say things to another man’s face they can’t back up physically. However, women enjoy the luxury of that time-honored privilege of not having to face the physical ramifications of their outbursts. Social media has enabled members of the public to attack others at will from hundreds of miles away and force a subject to alter positions. Sometimes a subject willingly succumbs, may lose a job, a livelihood or business, have to find a new place to live, all because someone who was too chicken shit to use their own name was able to arouse the public and have it repeated by a so-called media that lazily refers to social media as a source of daily content.

While our news would be more uniform if those who disseminated it (on all levels) had to do so under oath under penalty of perjury, imagine a social media platform where those who participated had to show their real names and faces, thus were personally accountable for their posts.

It would be a very different world, indeed.