About Billboards

“Do not say anything online you would not want to be plastered on a billboard with your name on it.”
– Erin Bury

Last week, I wrote an article on the impact fake news is having on the way we perceive information and form our opinions on various subjects and events. I relied on a couple of news stories where it was obvious we just did not have all of the information needed in order to fully understand what was going on. Even today, we continue to uncover stories and aspects that make us reassess everything we thought we knew on any given issue. This is another danger of social media: it got everyone used to having everything instantly, irrespective of whether more is expected to be announced on the topic or not.

With the rise of social media and instant news, a new perspective softly slipped into the equation of how we perceive things and events taking place all across the globe, even when they occur in our country or town. In my previous article, I said that reading the news from one source does not dub you an expert on the subject. Once again, freedom of speech allows each and every one of us to formulate our own opinion based on the information that we collected. However, it does not give us the right to carry that opinion around like a medal – The problem with the rise of social media.

“It is a highly deceptive world, one that constantly asks you to comment but does not really care about what you have to say.”
– David Levithan

Growing up, I was told to never gossip about anyone in their back but rather if I was man enough, to say it out loud, I might as well say it in their face. Today, I feel like the rules of the game have changed, as social media have now created a new means to the exact same end: it allows us to voice our opinions whenever and however we feel like doing so, without facing any consequences for our actions. We hide behind our screens and express our opinions on events taking place all over the globe without ever getting the full picture of what is happening, what caused them, and what their implications will be in the days to come.

Whatever topic you choose, regardless of the time and place, we never have the full clear picture nor all the information required in order to even provide a coherent diagnosis. Whether we are talking Brexit, the resurface of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Beirut Explosion, the origin of COVID-19, the Hagia Sophia debate or something as immaterial as Lionel Messi wanting to leave FC Barcelona. You will always find someone who is trying to voice their opinion after having read just one article on the matter, someone who will try to discredit everything the media tells us, someone who will keep on making the same jokes on the topic in order to gain popularity and so on. The patterns constantly reappear whenever there is an opportunity to just speak one’s mind.

One way to describe this kind of behaviour is called the Hawthorne effect. Whenever we know that someone is watching us, we modify our behaviour and reactions in order to show a more pleasing – or at least socially acceptable – image of ourselves, which led to the creation of influencer marketing.We want whoever is watching to like what they see, to attribute value to our lives in society, to make us feel like we matter.

“Nowadays, influencers do anything to keep up with each other for attention, and it is not always something today’s youth should mimic.”
– Melanie Iglesias

Learn to take responsibility for your opinion as you post on social media.
If it is offensive, if it is spontaneous,
If it is not constructive, if it is not useful,
If the joke is getting old and irrelevant, if you would not say it in a normal conversation,

Then simply do NOT share it.

Throughout 2020, people have been slamming news agencies for generating fake news and making profits from everything that has been going on.
So, if we are criticising news agencies for not having all of the information on a story, what makes you think that a random person on social media does?