I know there's a bit of disconnect by me writing this on an actual social platform, but it's Beehaw - so it's cool.
Lately I've been getting away from Facebook again. I have friends and family on there who are sharing less than savory thoughts. Thoughts of fear, uncertainty, doubt, and even worse: the fettid stench of hatred. I went on there and decided to try and rationalize through status updates, but found myself becoming more frustrated, more angry myself.
I took a break from it the last couple of days and I feel better now. I've shared a couple of articles, but only articles of interests within tech and creativity. I felt like I'm landing a lil bit.
But now I made the mistake of accidentally pressing a notification on my phone... from Twitter (and no, I refuse to call if "X").
I was lead right to a post where some of my countrymen were snarling at a news article where some politicians were praising certain Palestinians who were fighting for their freedom from oppression and apartheid. The thread was full of videos from certain terrorist groups in Palestine unrelated to the actual people being praised, along with irrelevant subjects about battery manufacturing and green energy.
I'd just like to say that despite the crazy things my friends and family have said, even the crazy things I've said, does not have the same pure hatred that I read from that thread. I felt my anxiety bluster up as I mustered the gumption to reply, stating that I wondered why they were sharing videos of people who had suffered apartheid and persecution and blatantly ignoring what the state of Israel has been doing.
I'm now considering just deleting Twitter altogether, as I really don't use it that much. I used it only for a couple of choice accounts from good people who say wholesome things, but I've noticed that their updates don't show up anymore. I feel like Musk is monetising all the worst parts of human behaviour and that scares the ever loving crap out of me.
Say what you will about Facebook, and I'm very critical of Meta and Zuckerberg myself, but doesn't Zuckerberg seem a tad more... adjusted? Even though Facebook has been caught funneling people into extremist echo chambers I don't think I've ever seen anything as bad as what I'm seeing on Twitter right now.
I have friends and family who swear that social platforms in them selves is the source of the toxicity that is found on them, but as we can see on certain federated platforms (with strict CoC's of course) that isn't always the case.
Oh sure, we can talk about dark design patterns, micro dopamine feeding through doom scrolling and attention fishing notifications until the cows come home, but I think we all know that the internet - and by extension social platforms - is a big old mirror we hold up to ourselves.
It's like a reflection into our very minds and we don't like what we're seeing. We scream into the mirror at some imaginary antagonist, a sick and twisted being that stares back in disgust, but all we really are seeing is the reflection of ourselves.
Anyways, no point to all this. Just wanted to get that off my chest. I hope you are doing well and that you are treating yourself kindly.
Thanks for reading.
It's something I've been noticing as well. Ad- driven profit means exposure above all, which results in more provocative contents resulting in more engagement, positive or not...
There will be a time we look back at early 21st century's internet and listen from the younger generations "how could anyone do this?". In fact, lots of non-internet issues too, but...
I'm tired. I used to believe that more information always meant good and that free access for everyone will "free humanity from ignorance", as the common narrative from 1990s went. Now? I am tired. I am tired arguing with my older relatives about something they read from 'yet another obviously biased source'. I am tired of being called names and being threatened for trying to just l talk. I am tired of having my name and my face (as a naive social media user in 2000s) being plastered all over the place and have strangers come and say "why can't you go back to $place, $racist_word". I am tired of believing. It's like people are, as Zuckerberg says, dumb fucks. Even proud of it.
But yet, I don't want it to end this way.
It's not that people are dumb, but that they're numb. People seek easy answers to their problems when they can't handle reality.
Yesterday I was sitting at a bar while this African dude blamed all of Africa's ills on "white people". Dude didn't know about the IMF loans, belt and road initiative and thought Oamar Gedaffi would have saved Africa from the clutches of dirty, old white Europe, like he could have paid for everything and become the hero Africa needed - you know, idolatry. I just sat there and took it, more or less, because he was not what we'd call an intellectual.
If you do however sit and talk with African intellectuals it's clear it's more complex than that. Economic and judicial precedence, African feudalism, corrupt governments making deals with the west and China, misappropriating loans and pushing the cost over to the people in the form of austerity measures which yields no taxes for infrastructure and whatever taxes they do collect partly goes to the default, partly into the pockets of the corrupt officials and their lackeys. Add to that having to sell raw resources at cost as a result of said defaulting, yielding literally no profit for any companies or any raise in median wage and then turning around and going "evil westerners, evil white people".
You sort of feel bad in each instance, because the former is aggressive and downright disrespectful against the country they are in because of victim mentality being part and parcel of African propaganda, and the latter is just emotionally worn down because they always have to argue with the former and correct other westerners who are either subverted or overt racists, torn between two polls like a horse ripping them apart.
In both cases I just let them bend my ears. I don't accept that from my family though, because they are not only dumb, numb and zealous, but privileged.
At the same time, they get fed with propaganda, FUD and disinformation that they swallow every day - because their easy easy to all of their ills is nationalism and Jesus and they will harp on about how Hamas and Palestine are one and the same, because they also pine for the days of theocracy, what with being under educated and frustrated out of their gourd about things they can't or rather won't understand.
They all bury their heads in the sand and scream their cries of agony, like confused plants that subsist off misery. The world that we built is literally insane and it drains every last one of us.
I guess you're right. I had a similar experience, but from the opposite perspective. There was a prominent case of racist attacks in my area and I was trying to talk about it, to my group of friends nonetheless.
I had to accept that other people won't share the same exact values as myself, even if I believed it was the right cause. They were the 3rd party, the disengaged and occupied with their own life businesses. Its not that I "abandoned my beliefs", but learn to identify proper audience and tone it down when it wasn't the case.
It's the modern life and it's complexity I'm afraid. Salaries, taxes, credits, insurances, permits, licenses, etc - it's too much to handle all at once. Some choose to focus on what they can afford to with what little remains of their energy after an exhausting work shift. I can't really blame the individuals caught in this.