I just finished the fantastic new book from Charles Arthur titled Social Warming: The Dangerous and Polarising Effects of Social Media, and this question kept creeping into my mind. Arthur wrote a phenomenal book, but this isn’t the first time this question has come up for me. I read a ton of books on issues and challenges with social media because I’m fascinated with human behavior and how social media plays a role in polarization, conspiracy theories, and real-world acts of violence. It seems like the common solution people come to is that we should child-proof everything, but I think it’s a much more nuanced conversation that we need to be having where we address the root of the problem.
And before I get started, I apologize for calling people dumb. I actually don’t think many people are legitimately dumb, but all of us are susceptible to acting dumb due to our lack of emotional control and all of the cognitive errors we run into. Whether it’s politics or personal relationships, we all have the capacity to act like really dumb people.
But I think about this topic often, and most of it is because in 2019, I was cancelled. A major contributing factor to getting cancelled was due to the vast spread of misinformation. If you look up “The Rewired Soul” on YouTube, the top results are videos with hundreds of thousands of views that enticed thousands of people to harass me online and threaten me and my family. There are videos stating without an ounce of evidence that I’ve claimed to be a therapist or accusing me of racism while not realizing I’m half Black. There are even videos with thousands of views saying that I’ve told depressed people they should commit suicide.
This was the most difficult experience I’ve gone through since getting sober, and fortunately, I didn’t relapse. But if I can go through this and still think censorship of misinformation might be a bad idea, I think I have some pretty decent reasons for my argument.
I have always had an insane issue with people acting dumb, and often times when people asked me why I drank and abused drugs, I’d tell them it was because of stupid people. Even though I’ve worked on my anger issues and become much more patient, tolerant, and compassionate, I get just as frustrated as the next person seeing people at town hall meetings claiming the COVID vaccine makes you magnetic while trying to stick a spoon to their skin.
When I see people actively deny science because of something they read from a random source on social media, I wonder if Aristotle was right and that dumb people shouldn’t be allowed to participate in a democracy. But then I snap back to reality and realize that censorship isn’t the answer.
And I get it, it’s scary. We’re not even done with 2021, and the following situations have happened with social media playing some significant roles:
The capital insurrection on January 6th
Man killing his two children due to QAnon conspiracies
Washington DC area evacuated due to man live-streaming a bomb threat
The anti-vax and anti-mask movement
Each of these situations has serious, real-world consequences, but despite our intuitions to let social media platforms child-proof against misinformation, it’s not a good idea.
Should Social Media Decide What’s Acceptable?
Listen, I think Mark Zuckerberg and most other social media platform creators aren’t that great, but I empathize with the ethical questions they all have to wrestle with. There are a lot of solutions that they are completely neglecting, but I don’t believe they should be able to decide what the truth is.
Aside from the new book from Arthur Charles, some other excellent books are Silicon Values by Jillian York and An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frankel and Cecilia Kang. I’ve actually had the opportunity to have Jillian and Sheera on my podcast to discuss their books, and I always ask journalists the same question, “Do you think social media platforms should limit speech?” I even asked Mike Rothschild on my podcast, and he’s a journalist who wrote The Storm is Upon Us about the rise of QAnon on social media.
No matter which journalist I talk to, their answer is always “no”.
Why? Great journalists are truth-tellers and many (not all) have high ethical standards. Not only that, but they know the importance of being able to share the truth with the public. I never truly understood the importance of a free press until Trump was in office and weaponized the term “fake news”. If the government or social media platforms are allowed to be the arbiters of truth, it can turn real bad real quick.
Now, let’s take a moment to recap. I’ve personally been attacked and threatened due to misinformation, and each of these journalists has written numerous articles and books about how social media platforms spread misinformation. Even after all of that, none of us really think platforms should decide what is or isn’t true.
On top of this, no serious person would say that there aren’t bad actors. In her upcoming book Bad News, Batya Ungar-Sargon explains how profit incentives lead many publications to potentially spread misinformation or play into the culture wars. Unfortunately, the line of demarcation for truth is constantly in flux, and we have to take that into consideration.
The Search for Truth
When I see hate speech and misinformation, every fiber of my being wants to argue for limiting speech. I don’t know if this is an innate human reaction, but I think we all fear that hate speech and lies will lead to disaster. But when my emotions rise about any topic, I know that it’s time to step back and really assess the situation. Fear keeps us safe, but it can also lead to some terrible decisions that have unintended consequences.
In order to battle this urge to censor people, I purposely read books that argue against it. The first book I read on the topic was The Coddling of The American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, and Greg actually introduced me to the phenomenal books from Jonathan Rauch. In both Kindly Inquisitors and The Constitution of Knowledge, Rauch really helped me challenge a variety of my beliefs when it comes to these topics. And Nadine Strossen’s book Hate even sold me on the idea that we shouldn’t limit hate speech regardless of how much we despise it and those who spread it.
The first thing we have to understand is that truth is constantly changing. What we consider true changes with new information and it can even be affected by our emotions and biases. It sucks, but this even affects science. And during this last year and a half, we’ve had the perfect example by having to deal with the COVID pandemic in the age of social media.
Let’s break this down into a few categories:
Science
With scientists and doctors all over the world researching COVID, we were constantly getting new and conflicting information. We were getting daily and sometimes hourly updates on how the virus spreads, the efficacy of masks, the origins of the virus, and more. Were scientists lying? Were they disagreeing on the findings? Were they just getting new information?
And when it comes to social media deciding on the truth, we have to ask ourselves some important questions:
If two scientists or doctors disagree on the findings, should social media decide which one is telling the truth and censor the other?
If a scientist read the data wrong or made an error, should they be banned or punished for a human mistake?
If the old information is no longer true, is that now considered misinformation?
Journalism
The science funnels into journalism, and I’ve had the opportunity to become acquainted with some incredible science journalists. Unfortunately, they too are put in a difficult situation. Not only are science journalists trying to convert science talk into a language we can all understand, but they have to work frantically to update what the researchers are saying.
So how does social media handle that?
If a journalist report on outdated information in this fast-paced environment, are they spreading misinformation?
Should publications have to take down outdated information because people may not realize it’s outdated?
Do they need to go back and delete or update any and all social media posts with this outdated information?
The People
Pause and take a minute to think about this. Any and all questions we just asked lead back to the question presented in the title of this piece, “Should social media protect dumb people from misinformation?” Who’s responsible? The researchers? The journalists? Social media platforms? Or the people.
Well, if we hold the people responsible, we run into similar issues when it comes to trying to identify the truth. By the time the information reaches social media users, it’s hopefully been funneled from credible researchers to ethical journalists. Even then, each of these people is human who may have made a mistake due to an error or bias.
If social media decides what truth is, do they punish people who unknowingly share misinformation?
What if they share something on a debated scientific finding?
Should social media platforms make the decision on punishment based on the social media user’s education level and profession?
By now, I hope you understand why I’m not a fan of the idea of social media platforms deciding on what is or isn’t true. But there’s clearly a problem that’s in need of a solution. Rather than child-proofing social media platforms to stop or slow the spread of misinformation, I have a better idea.
Teach People How to Think
My son is 12 and a half, and I can already feel the teenage sass trying to emerge from his body. He gets frustrated with me because I don’t like giving him answers. Instead, I try to teach him how to think. For example, him and I love to cook together, and he asks a lot of questions because he wants to make sure he doesn’t screw anything up. When he asks questions, I respond with more questions to help him figure out the answer on his own.
Sometimes, he gets a little pissed, and I can tell he thinks I’m being condescending, but I’m not. When emotions are back at the baseline, I explain that I’m not trying to be mean or treat him like he’s stupid. I regularly remind him that one of my primary goals as a father is to teach him how to think. That way, when I’m not around, he can have the tools he needs to think critically and try to make the best decisions possible.
We have a lot of conversations about how to be skeptical of information regardless of the source while also being respectful. The famous skeptic and upcoming guest on my podcast Peter Boghossian taught me the importance of being a street epistemologist from his books, and that’s what I try to teach my son. Whether it’s news, science, or beliefs, I want my son to always be asking, “How do I know what I know?”
Now, I’m under no delusion that I’m the father of the year, but I’m a firm believer in getting to the root of the problem. And when it comes to the topic of social media and the spread of misinformation, I know that social media isn’t the root of the problem. The root problem is that we need to teach people how to think.
There are incredible authors who have dedicated insane amounts of time to researching, studying, and writing entire books about how to be a better thinker. Some fantastic books are How to Think by Tom Chatfield and The Intelligence Tap by David Robson. But not only do we need to teach people how to think, but we need them to know how to detect bullshit. This is why I’m also constantly recommending The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit by John V. Petrocelli.
We’re all well aware of that old saying:
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Well, how to think is the fish in this scenario and wanting social media platforms to increase censorship is doing a disservice by “giving people the fish”. Wouldn’t it be a far better solution to just teach people how to fish?
The spread of misinformation is far older than social media and other forms of technology. In her book Strongmen, Ruth Ben-Ghiat has an entire chapter on how Hitler, Mussolini, and others used propaganda and misinformation to do terrible things. And don’t forget that the highly influential book Propaganda by Edward Bernays was written in 1928. So, that’s why it’s completely and utterly silly to believe the solution is social media crackdowns.
Instead, let’s teach our children how to become better thinkers. Let’s have more conversations with each other and be street epistemologists and ask each other how we know what we know. But most importantly, let’s focus on improving ourselves and our thinking first.
When I got sober in 2012, a mentor of mine always told me, “Chris, it’s a lot easier to change you than it is to change the rest of the world.”
I’ve been working on organizing all the books I’ve read, and I have multiple lists of books on becoming a better thinker. There are lists for thinking, self-deception, biases, and analyzing data. For the rest of the categories, click here.
I’m always open for a conversation and to be shown what I might be missing or where I may be wrong, so feel free to email me at TheRewiredSoul@gmail.com
Interesting article. I wonder if you have thought about the ramifications social media has toward those individuals who are gullible compared to those lacking the intellectual gifts you purport.On a different note, much of the disinformation on COVID comes from people who did not follow traditional scientific norms. Peer-reviewed primary literature from non-predatory journals was subverted in the name of expediency with deadly consequences.