There was much jubilation yesterday among advocates of free speech following the news that Mark Zuckerberg is to relax restrictions on free expression on the social media platforms owned by Meta, including its most popular site, Facebook. This initiative will include doing away with politically-biased ‘fact checkers’, lifting restrictions on contentious political topics, and adding a function similar to ‘community notes’ on X.
Social media has always been part of the problem. It has been a chief motor in bringing about our age of conformity and censorship
Those who write and campaign on the importance of free speech, and whose livelihoods depend on this principle being upheld, were understandably delighted: Toby Young praised Zuckerberg’s statement as ‘fantastic news’ while Andrew Doyle welcomed it as a ‘step in the right direction!’ For my tuppence-worth, I should also be celebrating, having once been silenced by Facebook for a piece I wrote here on why men are funnier than women (it wasn’t a compliment to my sex, by the way, as those who read beyond the headline understood).
There are a couple of reasons to temper expectations, however. The first is to avoid falling into complacency and declaring once more that ‘woke is over’. Until all vestiges of this mindset and oppressive dogma are removed from the public institutions and corporations, and banished from the minds who run them, woke will never be over. Only this weekend we read about both Nottingham universities issuing a self-flagellating report on how they are mired in their own racism. Or regard the still mandatory over-representation of rainbow families and dearth of white men on television adverts. Woke is far from dead.
The second reason for caution relates to social media itself. Whether it be a forum for untrammelled debate or arena in which unfashionable and uncomfortable opinions are censored, social media has always been part of the problem. It has been a chief motor in bringing about our age of conformity and censorship.
Superficially a forum for exchanging opinions with people of different political persuasions, social media has long become one for enabling precisely the opposite, a forum for finding people who think like you and agree with you. It’s the logical conclusion for a medium that unites the political and the personal: we want strangers to like us and like what we have to say.
As long as you accept – and even exploit – the fact that social media is there to disseminate opinions, voice things others dare not, or signal and cement tribal affiliation, that’s fine. Just don’t pretend that it’s useful for the constructive exchange of ideas that result in a fresh and fruitful conclusions and people changing their minds. Engagement with absolute strangers on X rarely brings about this state of affairs. Owing to the fact that online conversations are distant, disembodied and therefore necessarily dehumanised, debate invariably proceeds with hostility and rancour and concludes in stalemate, with opinions further entrenched and feelings embittered.
But at least most people understand that X is an unruly public forum, that confrontation is intrinsic to the beast and hurty words an ever-present possibility. Zuckerberg’s Facebook, on the other hand, is far worse for political enlightenment and engagement.
That anyone should choose social media in general and this medium in particular as their first port of call for news and opinion is mysterious and depressing. Facebook works on algorithms that know what you like already, and thus feeds you more of the same. It’s a place where prejudices are reinforced and minds are closed more tightly shut.
The medium is rendered all the more frustrating by the unresolved ambiguity of the concept of ‘Facebook friend’. Most of we middle-aged users have come to acknowledge that these people, many of whom we have never met, aren’t friends in the conventional sense. Yet we still endeavour to treat them with the same courtesy and respect we do actual friends. Some shared thoughts on the world is fine and natural, but there will always be some virtual friends who will heedlessly and relentlessly shove their opinions down your throat, behaviour that will always constitute bad manners.
Facebook is not where constructive or civilised politics takes place. It’s good for establishing and nurturing ersatz friendships, but it should be avoided as a forum for gathering news and discussing it.
As, ultimately, should X. It’s invaluable as a supplement to what you might have read in the newspapers or heard on the radio that morning. And here lies, and here remains, the fundamental sources of instruction and edification. The best channels for opening your mind remain newspapers, magazines – print and online – and radio and television, where authority and serendipity prevails: where you are presented with facts, stories and opinions you do not always seek, but rather find.
As fashionable as it is to malign the ‘legacy’ or ‘mainstream media’, it’s there where you’ll authentically find news and opinion that informs, educates and infuriates.
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