There’s a ridiculous amount of misinformation shared on social media. From the latest Meryl Streep pic with the mis-placed caption or the dude whose profile pic was photoshopped to make him look like a terrorist, there’s a massive personal responsibility when it comes to spreading information.

The latest example of this is after the Paris attacks, Rurik Bradbury, CMO at Trustev, an e-commerce software company, tweeted from his satirical twitter account, @profjeffjarvis:

A few folks noticed the lights were off and, thinking there was some sort of connection, the tweet went viral. But, there is no connection. The lights are turned off everyday.

@profjeffjarvis then HAD to release a fake apology, just to make everyone aware of how silly they were:

Rurik Bradbury then penned a lovely email to the Washington Post on his thoughts about social media:

The social media reaction to a tragedy is a spaghetti mess of many strands, some OK but most of them useless. There are positive elements (in intention, at least), such as the #porteouverte hashtag and the Facebook “Safety Check” in Paris — though it remains to be seen how many people actually gained from these, either finding a place to stay or letting relatives know they were OK. (Also, it does trouble me that Facebook scored a PR win from Paris, furthering its agenda of becoming the de facto social identity of all humans, then monetizing this monopoly: if the Safety Check becomes a default state of affairs, is Facebook then responsible in some way for emergency responses; what are the implications when someone doesn’t post their safety status on Facebook and so on.)

But the part that feels the most useless to me is people’s vicarious participation in the event, which on the ground is a horrible tragedy, but in cyberspace is flattened to a meme like any other. Millions of people with no connection to Paris or the victims mindlessly throw in their two cents: performative signalling purely for their own selfish benefit, spreading information that is often false and which they have not vetted at all, simply for the sake of making noise. If people wanted to be helpful, they would either be silent, or they would put in some — even minimal — effort to be thoughtful. First, they could spread useful and vetted information. And second, they could throw support behind a viewpoint they believe in, such as speaking out against politicians using the attacks to demonize Muslims or migrants, which is exactly what the murderers responsible for the Paris attacks want to provoke.

Instead of silence or helpfulness, social media pukes out stupidity, virtue-signalling and vicarious “enjoyment” (in a psychoanalytic sense) of a terrible tragedy by people thousands of miles away, for whom the event is just a meme they will participate in for a couple of days, then let fade into their timeline.

Finally, a post that allows me to share all my views without having to. Aaaaah, bliss.

[source: businessinsider]