MINOT, N.D. — “The average person in the U.S. has only one close friend, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review.” That’s something NBC News reported earlier this year. “One in four people have no confidantes at all,” they also reported, and some 75 percent of people say they’re unsatisfied with the friendships they…
Maybe Life Doesn’t Need to Be One Giant Game of Gotcha
There is now a generation of adults who grew up with access to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. A lot of these adults posted ignorant things on these platforms when they were young because, as I point out in my print column today, kids are dumb. I am hoping the silver lining in…
Senator Kevin Cramer Signs Letter to Facebook Over Censorship of Pro-Life Content
North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer – along with Senators Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Missouri), and Mike Braun (Indiana) – has sent a letter to Facebook asking them to remove any restrictions placed on content produced by a pro-life group which was “fact-checked” by people with ties to the pro-choice side of the abortion debate.…
A Reminder That Social Media Activism Isn’t Real Life
Social media has come to dominate current. Or, at the very least, the way we perceive current events. It’s not just the mobs and factions which form on social media, both organized and spontaneous, it’s how much time journalists spend writing and talking about what’s happening on social media. We may be living in the…
Print Column: If Everything Is Special Then Nothing Is Special
MINOT, N.D. — There’s a waiting line at the top of Mount Everest these days. Summiting our planet’s tallest peak was, once upon a time, one of the high water marks of human achievement. Now it has all the sex appeal of waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Only with less oxygen. “Climbers were…
We Can’t Make Free Speech a Popularity Contest
Recently a reader contacted me to say that Facebook was doing something strange with a SayAnythingBlog.com link posted to Facebook. He sent me a screenshot (see it over there on the right) of questions the social media platform was asking him about the content. “Just letting you know Facebook asked me to do a survey…
Social Media Vigilantism Is a Real and Pervasive Problem
There are all sorts of mobs on the internet. There are political mobs who defend their favorite ideology/party/candidate while attacking opponents. There are sports mobs who defend their favorite team. I’ve been on the receiving end of no small amount of vitriol from fans of the NDSU Bison athletic teams, which has a few times…
Social Media Justice Reveals Something Ugly About Our Society
Back in July there was an incident in Fargo where a man taking photographs in Island Park, near the pool, was himself photographed by someone who thought he was maybe a pervert. That person uploaded pictures of the photographer to Facebook where they quickly went viral. The photos got thousands of shares and hundreds of comments…
Yet Another Social Media Reaction Leaves Widow Emotionally Wounded
Imagine having to weather the untimely death of your spouse. Now imagine going through that while an army of social media yahoos, armed with nothing but their own biases and knee-jerk assumptions, classify your spouse’s death s the result of drug or alcohol abuse. That’s what a woman was left dealing with this weekend when…
Social Media Justice Is No Justice At All
There is no question in my mind that the democratization of the media brought about by blogs, and the enhancements to communications brought by platforms like Facebook and Twitter, have been a net benefit to society. But there is an element to social media, in particular, that’s grown disturbing. Specifically, the rise of online mob…