Given the title of this blog I must ask
the question is our very democracy in danger from the proliferation
of discourse on social media, whether true or not, about our
political leaders and their various 'platforms'. I will freely admit
that being one of the rare individuals that has no social media
presence himself and thus only see media reports about some of the
political mud being thrown in such places as Twitter and Facebook
that my perception could be totally skewed from reality. That said,
it seems to me that anybody can say anything about the various
'platforms' put out by the established parties whether true or not
and much of the rhetoric gets picked up and amplified by the users of
said social media.
The disinformation on such media would
seem to be totally over the top, uncontrolled and without any
accountability for such untruths, the twit in chief to the south Mr
Trumph being the greatest spreader of such lies. Once the election
period starts the political parties themselves will have some
restrictions as to expenditures and can be challenged about glaringly
partisan lies, but what of similar similar lies and partisan BS on
social media? Our MSM, the newspapers and TV stations, are less
restricted in what they can (and do) say than the political parties
themselves but still can be held legally responsible for published
information, individuals on social media not so much.
Is the ease with which anyone no matter
who they are or where they live (including foreign entities who would
like to destroy our democratic systems) can spread their opinions a
good thing in promoting dialog or a dangerous thing with the
potential to give those who would destroy or subvert our
parliamentary system a foot in the door. I don't know, but I sure see
some troubling trends developing.
The current situation in the U.S. and
Great Britain is as much the result of the spread (by the twit in
chief and facecrap) of dissenting, often inaccurate or misleading,
opinions by both political pundits and their social media followers
as the very questionable output from said 'leaders'. So far it has
not reached such epidemic proportions here in Canada but I see an
alarming trend in the increase of such disinformation spread by such
means.
A fellow blogger who writes about
democracy wrote a commentary yesterday upon the current state of
affairs at https://billlongstaff.blogspot.com/2019/08/i-vote-cbc.html
which promotes the CBC as perhaps the only remaining 'neutral' MSM,
whilst I would hope its not that quite that bad yet I cannot help but
agree that it is increasingly looking bleak in that regard.
As an old man who has been kicking
around on this ball of dirt we call earth for more than 70 years have
I just started seeing more clearly or simply become much more
cynical? Or is my strong dislike and distrust of 'social media'
coloring my concern that rhetoric will overwhelm common sense? You
decide!
