What
happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas! Or
does it?
Perhaps an all girls weekend
got a little crazy after your eighth shot of tequila. You and your girls make your way to the Viva
Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, where you marry a sexy dancer from the Thunder from
Down Under show. To make the occasion even
better, an Elvis impersonator officiates the wedding ceremony and your
girlfriends are your impromptu bridesmaids/witnesses, snapping pictures with
their phones and posting the images to social media faster than you can say, “I
do!” It was a magical night until you
wake up the next morning and realize you are lying next to a complete stranger
in your hotel room. It couldn’t possibly
get any worse until your mother calls you screaming because she just found out
you married a total stranger in Vegas, and it is all over social media. Oh boy, what have you done?
A crazy situation like this might sound a bit extreme, but I
am willing to bet many people (especially the younger generations) have not given
a second thought about what they have posted to their social media feeds. Every day, we post pictures of ourselves, retweet
polarizing political memes, “like” racist comments, use offensive language, and
debate others about something they said on social media. We do these things because
we believe our First Amendment Rights allow us to do so. All the while, we have not taken into
consideration who might be looking at our pictures, how our comments may be
perceived, or how or tweets/retweets might come back to haunt us in the future. What people fail to remember, though, once
something is on the Internet, it is there forever! You can no longer burn those old photos from
high school that you hope never resurface again like we used to do. Do you know which ones I’m referring to…the
ones where you’re smoking a joint at that one big party at Brad’s? No, you can’t because everything is digital
now, and therefore, someone has probably already uploaded it to social media
too.
Currently, I am in graduate school, and my end goal is to
find a job, no a career, when I graduate this spring that not only uses my new
skills and education, but that also makes me happy. The thought of looking for a job, social
media, starting over, etc. – it got me thinking. When I received my bachelor’s degree over 15
years ago, finding a job was very different.
Throughout my career, I have changed jobs several times as well. Even though I am not graduating until May, I
am very mindful of watching what I post on my social media feed. In fact, I have taken a step away from social
media momentarily because of the negativity and current political climate in
this election year; I do not want to be tempted to say something I might
regret. Potential employers can scroll
through my feed and view past comments, pictures, and “likes” I may have
forgotten are on my social media pages.
I could be the perfect candidate for the job, but due to something I
posted online, I get passed over for the position. Unfortunately, most employers never tell you
why you did not get the job, leaving you wondering what went wrong. Therefore, I self-censor myself and my social
media feed.
Then again, this is 2020.
We now live in a world consumed by technology and social media. My son is happy spending his free time
watching Youtube videos of dorks screaming and cursing at the TV while they play
video games. (I hate it, but it’s what
they all watch these days). What’s
worse, is that some of these dorks make six figures playing video games on
Youtube for a living. Children have become
famous because they open donated, new toys that are not even on the market yet,
on their Youtube channel. Then, they
tell their followers what they think about the toy, and advertisers pay them
money. Insane! Women maintain “mom blogs” about funny child
antics, old wives tales, and couponing as a way to make extra money but also
link up with the outside world. These
people make a living online and, they say what they believe because that is what
the public wants to hear. Millions of
people follow movie stars and famous musicians on social media daily. Sometimes, it seems like the more outrageous and
controversial things they say, the more people follow them. Either way, they typically do not censor
themselves. So, why should the rest of
us? Why should what we say, or “like,”
or the pictures we post to our feed make a difference in the way people view
us?
Likewise, Clay Shirky (2012) discusses a food
blog by a young girl in Scotland named Martha Payne. Payne’s blog, NeverSeconds, documents her
daily opinions about her school’s lunch, where she also provides a picture, a description,
and a rating. Shirky points out to the
TED talk crowd that her blog began to gain readers, “And, as sometimes
happens, this blog acquired first dozens of readers, and then
hundreds of readers, and then thousands of readers, as people tuned
in to watch her rate her school lunches, including on my favorite
category, ‘Pieces of hair found in food.’
This was a zero day. That’s good”
(2012). However, then Shirky relays to
the audience that Martha’s head teacher told her she was no longer allowed to
post about her lunches on her blog, prompting her to write a good-bye
post. The outrage! Her school had to completely back-track, claiming they never tried to censor a nine-year-old student (except they just did that morning). To that, Shirky asked
the question, “What made them think they could get away with something
like that? And the answer is, all of
human history prior to now” (2012).
In reality, it doesn't matter whether it is 2020 or 1920. People are still being censored. And it also doesn't appear that our obsession with social media and technology is going away anytime soon. In fact, we seem determined to advance and develop new intelligence that will move us further than we have ever gone before. Therefore, if we are going to be a society that lives, works, and socializes online, then we cannot be people that use our words and photos against each other. If you don't want to be censored, or self-censor, then think about that going forward. I'm sure we all have a few skeletons in our closet, and we shouldn't be afraid of losing a big account or not getting a job because of a picture from 20 years ago or a lunch blog that tells the truth about what a child is eating at school.
"An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings." - Salman Rushdie (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/censorship-quotes)
References
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