Base principles

Dust off your principles and apply them to a very complicated situation

This blog has been in the works for months, long before the events of the current day. Before anyone thinks this is about anything specific.

The internet is a distorted place. The environment of our digital selves. That, day after day, amalgamate and merge with our physical ‘real’ lives.

If you get fired on social media, you get fired in real life.

Distortion and presumed innocence

We’re just posting, right? The innocence of words on a digital page. No real impact, unless we want to have impact. We’re a nobody until we want to monetize our audiences.

And the tech giants are no different. They have the protections of Section 230:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

-Section 230(c)(1), a section of Title 47 of the United States Code, part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

Long story short, this absolves platforms of what is published on their platforms, as long as moderation is fair and reasonable.

The result is a maelstrom of opinions, ‘facts,’ ideas, reports, and ideologies. With no one accountable for the outcomes it produces, except for the few that the FBI felt might be worth hunting down.

Reaction, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

We react. We reap the engagement rewards. We don’t worry. We love the Bomb - it’s a reaction magnet.

Like war, a cohort benefits from the chaos. Where else, other than the internet, can we claim a constant chaos that goes unnoticed by governments - who eschew governance and accountability whenever it’s convenient.

And so our grandparents get scammed, or neighbors get radicalized, or friends approach us about their MLMs, and our families spout ‘facts’ from the depths of psyoptic content studios.

If it wasn’t digital, would you reconsider?

Throw away the digitalness of it all. Remember the manners and expectations of past generations. Chivalry isn’t dead, right?

Let’s call these ‘Base Principles’

We learned to be polite. We learned to care. We learned to engage and interact and contribute.

The internet doesn’t erase that.

If there’s one thing my parents instilled, it’s the notion that “you never know who you’re talking to.”

Your boss is watching. Your Mom is watching. Conduct yourself accordingly.