I recently learned about people who lost jobs because they Liked a social media post – the post was okay but the person posting it was not. This, in turn, caused the person clicking Like on the wrong-think post to lose their job. Pretty stunning.
This is not to the level of someone posting hate speech online or anything like that. A simple Like or seemingly innocuous comments can be twisted by the culture of perpetual outrage – and the consequence today is to be canceled.
Years ago I deleted most of my online social media – most of which was boring anyway. But concern over privacy and the growing cancel culture scared me. That and that social media is a terrible place for discourse. Every day i see tons of idiocy posted online by people who have no idea what they are talking about and are way off in space. Naturally we think we should present some facts or logic – but that is a waste of time. Yet this is the opium of social media that gets many to return day after day and waste their time.
The cancel culture has exploded over the past year or so. I no longer believe it is safe for most of us to post much on line other than cat photos.
Consequently, I have decided to aggressively edit my past posts, especially on Covid-related topics, I have frequently contested the status quo – with data, charts and logic. But going against the powers-that-be is not a wise move for most of us. (Although I still will do some such posts.)
I am in process of privatizing many past posts. Based on my initial set, perhaps half of my past Covid posts will vanish from visibility.
Not a big deal as I have always viewed this collection as a diary of this historic pandemic – from the very beginning. This blog has little traffic anyway – may be 200 visitors on a good day! Thus, I have little to gain from the limited exposure but potentially much to lose if attacked by the prevalent Karens of social media.
