I haven't watched the full interview between Elon Musk and
the BBC North American technology reporter James Clayton. What I've watched is
a short snippet of the interview where Musk, who owns Twitter, asked him to
give an example of 'hateful content' and Clayton struggled to do so.
What really gets the goat of many politicians and mainstream
media types, is the very ubiquity and accessibility of social media. It allows
Joe public, and dare I say, social cranks and misfits, to publish their views
and opinions subject to some constraints, and breaks down the barriers when it
comes to having a public voice.
Some journalists like Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian,
certainly find this irritating and annoying. In an article that he wrote some
time ago, Freedland boasted that there had been a time when the commentariat,
elite career journalists like himself, could deny someone like the racist and
Islamaphobe, Tommy Robinson, a public voice, because they would see to it that
he was never published. With social media, that's not so easy to achieve and
many young people now turn the internet and social media sites to access
information rather than turn to the newspapers.
Jonathan Freedland reminds me of King Henry VIII, who was
opposed to William Tyndale publishing the Bible in English. Why? The King said,
"because every pot boy will now have
an opinion" and that notion was seen as threating to the monarch. He
later changed his tune, and in 1538 authorized an English translation of the Bible
in his name.
Computer technology also allows you to set up your own blog -
a personal website - and publish on the internet. Who doesn't carry a mobile
phone these days? Everyday incidents get photographed like police brutality or
crimes and video recorded and uploaded onto YouTube or some other social media
site, before the journalists often get wind of it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment