Tag Archives: News

Potential Humanity

We live in an era of incredible potential. And yet when I opened my news feed this morning this is what I saw:

A misogynist Op-Ed that was clearly written with malice.

A racist group causing harm and violence.

An extremist left group doing the same.

An anti-mask gym owner saying he’ll continue to pay fines to keep his gym open.

A politician calling covid a ‘hoax pandemic’.

The largest iceberg ever, that broke off in 2017 thanks to global warming, is heading to islands likely to cause an ecological disaster.

Crazy.

When I think of the potential of humanity, I think of benevolence, creativity, generosity, love, and kindness.

When I open the news I see hate and ignorance. Today these stupid headlines came (except for the iceberg) from the country south of our borders. A country that’s supposed to be about equal opportunity, liberty, and justice. A country divided into two camps so opposed to the other side that they see the other as enemies more than neighbours (or I should say neighbors).

What does it mean to be human? What potential do we have as a species? What could we accomplish if we work together? What kind of world would we live in if we focused on what’s possible?

We can be better as a species. We can be peaceful. We can be kind. We can be loving. We can be more human.

Vaccinated from the truth

It’s great to see that the Russian coronavirus vaccine is showing very positive results. And both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines look equally as promising. Like many other vaccines before these, the side effects seem insignificant, and that holds a lot of promise for 2021 getting off to a great start.

This is refreshing news after I spent a bit of time going down a dark rabbit hole of links about conspiracy theories and end of days religious idiocy last night. I don’t usually follow these paths, but I got a spam message that was so ludicrous in claims that I had to check it out for pure entertainment value.

The claims were everything from technology like this being secretly added to vaccines to monitor you, to God speaking directly to people about the divinity of Donald Trump, to signs of the apocalypse and the end of the world. What blew me away was how these completely different narratives would cross over and interconnect. Every crazy idea added fuel to the next crazy idea. It wasn’t enough to hold one conspiratorial idea, they had to be connected and somehow one ‘proved’ that the other was ‘real’.

I dug around in this rabbit hole and what I saw was videos with thousands of likes, where the lines between a kernel of truth and delusional lies was nonexistent. It was hard to grasp where reality ended and bat-shit-crazy fantasy began. There seemed to be random moments where new ‘theories’ just jumped out and ‘proved’ some other unrelated stupidity. For example, a video talking about how vaccines are being used, (by elites in a conspiratorial cabal led by Bill Gates), to input instruments of the devil in you, then shifted to how your DNA is being altered by Chemtrails that make you think less about God. My imagination is pretty good, but I couldn’t fathom trying to make these connections up.

And through these crazy narratives one thing seems to prevail: that the world is conspiring to take away personal liberties. These people will not get vaccinated, no matter how safe and reliable the vaccine might be. They are already vaccinated from truth.

My 13th Twitterversary

Today marks 13 years since I sent my first Tweet. Twitter has influenced me enough that I even wrote a short (free) ebook to help people get started on it.

My use of Twitter has evolved considerably. It used to play a bigger role in my life because it was a gateway to learning about using technology and social media as a means to share ideas and seek out others doing the same. Now, I find that I transmit more than I engage, and when I engage it’s usually with people I’ve developed long term digital friendships with.

I also use it for news. I hate watching news, but going to the search page (tab) and seeing the trending hashtags is enough to keep me informed without being sucked into the drama and bias of a single news source on TV. This isn’t a comprehensive way to consume news, but these days I struggle to keep from being sucked into the most recent drama that streams constantly through news headlines, and a simple hashtag summary can succinctly let me know if I should dig deeper.

I have to say 13 years after starting that I romanticize and miss the ‘old Twitter’ days of people sharing links to blog posts they wrote and the marriage between Twitter and blogging that, while still there, is far less what Twitter is about. That said, my consumption of blogs as a primary place to engage online has diminished, while ironically I have become a prolific blogger, writing daily for the past 16 months. It’s easy to romanticize something that you simultaneously aren’t likely to want to return to. And so while I miss ‘old Twitter’ I must admit that as much as Twitter has changed, I have changed too.

Watching Twitter change, I do see some positives that I hope to see continue and here is one area that impresses me:

While other social media sites are permitting widespread sharing of fake and unproven information, Twitter is putting warnings like this on prominent and influential people who are spreading false claims.

And while I’m a huge supporter of free speech, and against censorship, I do believe that bad ideas can spread easily and we have an obligation to warn people when influential people are irresponsible enough to promote bad ideas. While the balance between freedom to share and obligation to inform is a delicate one, I commend Twitter for taking the risk in being a leader in this area.

As an aside, I think there is room for a new form of social media, one where people can have public conversations with only invited guests, and everyone watching can have a separate side conversation. These closed but public conversations can have a moderator who can pull in sidebar comments and/or commenters, and so observers can be invited in and involved, if moderators choose. Or, moderators can delete or even block rude, inappropriate trolls that are disruptive to the side conversation.

Wide open conversations seem to bring out the worst in people, especially anonymous people that hide behind anonymity and say nasty things they would never say if their identity were known. A social media site that was more conversational than a blog, that allowed a healthy debate to happen in public, could be something that really helped to create open dialogue in a way that can’t seem to happen on Facebook or Twitter… without the conversation degrading into a petty, angry pissing match where trolls undermine the conversation.

Until that new social media tool comes along, I’ll just keep plugging along on Twitter, playing with how I use it so that it’s useful to me.

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Happy 13th Twitter Anniversary to me:)

At the speed of lies

Conspiracy theories have been around for a long time. They have, for years, been spread in small circles, where they fester and rise to prominence every now and then. The first time that I really saw social media have an influence on a conspiracy theory was around the 9/11 tragedy. YouTube videos started to emerge spreading the idea that it was a planned event by US insurgents or a cabal of some sorts, and not just a foreign terrorist attack. I saw videos getting millions of views based on fictional theories and the cherry-picking facts to focus on.

Now, Facebook groups form and millions of people join them. That’s worse than a video, because Facebook groups are not just about watching a single video, but about creating a continual stream of propaganda that feeds the beliefs of a growing community. As seen in this NPR article:

Social media groups have quickly sprung up in the days since voting stopped, to spread disinformation about supposed cheating on the part of election officials, and in some cases organize in-person protests.

“This is the most intense online disinformation event in U.S. history and the pace of what we have found has only accelerated since [Election Day],” said Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and Facebook’s former chief security officer.

Meanwhile, as I write this, Twitter has put this notice:

On 9 of the last 10 tweets of the sitting President. This notification links to the following statement:

It’s good to see that social media companies are stepping in to try to combat the spread of dangerous propaganda/fake news/lies. Counter to this is the argument of, ‘Who gets to decide what is true and what is not? Is this itself a form of censorship?’

I think there are definitive lines that can be drawn and social media sites do need to act. For example, when an idiot like Alex Jones decides to call a school shooting fake and declare that parents of dead children are actors, he deserves to be silenced on social media. The line is simple: fake and false claims (especially by people of influence) should be immediately flagged, or removed. Immediately.

One of the challenges of dealing with fake news and miss-information is that arguments against it are a win for the propaganda spreaders. The moment a credible person argues the point(s) they either legitimize the value of the opposing points as something worth arguing, or they feed into the conspiracy that they are hiding the truth, or they are widening the platform by bringing attention to it. It’s a losing scenario even if the argument of the credible person is factually sound.

When lies can spread so easily, when they can build momentum, and develop communities around them, they become very dangerous. Especially when the slick videos and arguments are well designed to ‘sell’ ideas, using the same convincing strategies that advertisers have honed for years, to sell products… but these strategies are being used to sell ideas that polarize opinions, anger and enrage, and ultimately brainwash people.

We are living in an era when social media is being used to undermine social cohesion. Lies travel fast and build momentum. Truth won’t slow this down without putting a few walls in the way. We can debate about what those walls look like, but we can’t wait until those walls are perfect before we start putting them up. Kudos to Twitter for doing what they are doing!

Common Sense and Speculation

I was planning a long post to look at Covid-19 numbers and the pandemic. With global numbers around 1/2 a million new cases a day and 18-20% of those in the US, it is fairly obvious that the 2nd wave is clearly upon us. Some would argue that the second wave is worse than the first wave. I don’t think so, but I do think we are at a dangerous point where it could get worse.

I started taking screen shots and saving links to research, but I really don’t have it in me this Sunday afternoon to be writing a formal essay on Covid-19. If you want some supporting resources, here is a LinkTree to some great research from an epidemiologist.

The following is what has me concerned right now about the pandemic:

1. Of course the numbers now are worse than wave 1. During wave 1 people couldn’t get tested, there weren’t enough tests out there. A relative in California had covid in March and was sent home without a test. She isn’t a March/wave 1 statistic, as many hundreds of thousands were not, simply from a lack of testing. However, that doesn’t mean that the numbers now are good, and without effort to slow the spread, they will get worse.

2. Some people are easily fooled and manipulated. The idea that masks are either something political or something that infringes on personal rights is asinine. That people mix up being a good citizen with being a rule-following sheep is insulting to the human race. We have survived as tribes, and communities, and as a species because we are communal and support each other in times of need. We are in a time of need to cooperate and support each other.

3. There is only one way to achieve herd immunity that is morally acceptable and that is with a vaccine. Any other approach is a disregard for human life and for the most vulnerable people in our society.

4. We will need a large percentage of the population to get vaccinated. This won’t happen initially. I’m completely pro-vaccine. I’m booked for a flu shot. I will get a Covid-19 vaccine… but I’m not racing to get one that has been rushed to market without being properly tested.

5. Speculations: These are assumptions I’m making, unlike the things above that are based on facts, research and common sense, these are things that I believe will happen in the future. (Hopefully still based on common sense, but I could be wrong!)

A) We will have a safe vaccine in 6 months to a year. What that means is that we will be heading into 2022 before we have a grasp of how well we will come out from the shadow of this virus.

B) We will start to see some normalcy to our world in the middle of 2021 because rapid testing will be affordable and widespread. So things like travel can happen with 1-3 day quarantines rather than 14 days. Entire offices or schools could get tested and contact tracing will help reduce the spread. So, despite the vaccine taking more time to arrive, with proper efforts to protect ourselves and to be willingly tested, things will get better before widespread vaccine adoption.

C) Anti-vaccination and anti-mask groups will stop getting the over-glorified attention they don’t deserve, and they will diminish in size. I’m most likely to be wrong with this speculation if the current US president is re-elected, and his downplaying Covid-19 propaganda is permitted to continue.

D) Despite my optimism that anti-vaccine and anti-mask groups popularity will wane, I think we will struggle with: Conspiracy theories being confused for news; Fake news being so common and well presented that it will become harder to distinguish from real news; And, social media will continue to promote the spread of bad ideas for quite some time. We are going to witness an epic battle between Truth, fake news, censorship, and sensationalization that will leave everyone wondering where they can look to find any information that doesn’t need fact checking?

So, take a deep breath, and buckle up for another year of uncertainty. We need to recognize that nothing is going back to 2019’s version of normal for some time. That said, we need to support each other, do our part, keep our BS filters on high alert, and make smart choices as we head into the holiday season and the new year.

Knowhere News

After a summer of on-and-off attention to the news of our world, and our world-influencing neighbour to the south, I’m back to limiting the fire hose of information flowing my way.

My sister put me on to a weekday news email that gives me all I really need to read, beyond what might be trending on Twitter. The email subscription is to Knowhere News. It’s American focused and self-described as: “We report facts, not opinions, in our free, daily digest and share our sources so you can see for yourself.”

I’ve found few other sources that share news with less bias… that said, while the articles themselves are indeed fact focussed and shared without biased language… I’m still determining the slant with respect to which articles they choose to share.

Still, I really appreciate the links to the sources of their articles. And, in a world where information all seems comes to be from a bipolar dichotomy, it’s nice to get news that doesn’t feel like it’s coming from a sports colour commentator routing for the home team.

Related: Ideas in a Spectrum

NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

It’s sad that fake news is spread so easily that this even has to exist! The Associated Press has started this report: “NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week“, to debunk fake and even harmful, made-up news reports that have gone viral on social media.

Here is an example:

“CLAIM: The new vaccine for COVID-19 will be the first of its kind ever. It will be an “MRna vaccine” which will literally alter your DNA. It will wrap itself into your system. You will essentially become a genetically modified human being.

THE FACTS: Experts say mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA. As researchers work to test vaccines to stop the spread of COVID-19, social media posts are sharing misinformation to sow doubt even before they become available to the public. The posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suggest that a new coronavirus mRNA vaccine will genetically modify humans…” — Beatrice Dupuy

This fake story feeds perfectly into the narrative of anti-vaxers and conspiracy theorists that believe Covid-19 is not serious and/or part of a plot to control the masses. It will be shared and re-shared, being passed off as facts and evidence on discussion boards, in Facebook groups and on Facebook timelines. It will be shared with hashtags on Twitter that will point this fake news to the right audience, who will believe it.

How did we get here? The sad thing is, the people that most need to see this Associated Press report are the people who would say that what’s written in this report is fake. They won’t do the research. They won’t check any sources. They won’t change their minds. They will spread the fake news and keep it alive long enough to fool more gullible people into believing what they want to believe, despite factual data and evidence to the contrary.

Worse yet, we are heading into the world of deep fakes, where video ‘evidence’ can be fabricated so well that it is indistinguishable from reality. Make no mistake, we need news websites like this to help us recognize viral fake news. We also need everyone to think twice before sharing controversial and click-bait like articles, unless we’ve done the work to ensure we aren’t perpetuating fake news.

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Find all AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

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Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

Our big ‘neighbor’

I remember driving through Indiana and meeting a couple older teenagers at a motel pool where we stopped for the night. It was the early ’90’s and these kids knew very little about Canada. They asked if I knew of Larry Bird and the NBA? They asked if we used the same currency? And they asked what the big mall was like? After a couple questions, I realized they meant West Edmonton Mall, and living in Toronto at the time I said, “You tell me, you live closer to it.”

That wasn’t a fair response, but I was growing weary of questions like this. As a Canadian on my travels through the States, I’ve been asked about hunting moose, dog sleds, igloos, and one of my favourites, if Canada was an American State?

I don’t pretend to know a lot about America, especially their history, but Canadians have an unfair advantage over Americans when it comes to knowing about each other’s countries. We see their news, they don’t see ours. We watch their television and movies. We follow their social media and business icons. We eat a lot of food produced in the US, and eat at restaurant chains that are American owned.

Canadians know we are significantly different than Americans. I’m not sure (beyond cliches) that the same can be said in reverse. It matters more to us when we rely so much on the US. And, if you look at a population map, the vast majority of Canadians live relatively close to our border, and that is not true for Americans.

Americans can live their lives not knowing anything about Canada. We don’t have the reverse option. Our election will be a ‘blip’ of news ‘down south’, theirs have and will continue to flood our media sources. Tariffs disputes affect individual companies in the US while they affect entire communities and Provinces in Canada. We will watch their blockbuster movies, and while some of them are filmed in Canada, they will be American films that Canadians might know were filmed here, but most Americans won’t.

We have a very large and powerful neighbour to our south, and we can’t ignore the influence they have on us. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next 5-10 years. The closed border, the discrepancy between our two countries in Covid-19 cases, their leadership, and the impression the US has on the world stage, has all changed the way the US is viewed in Canada.

The little brother or sister eventually stops looking at his bigger brother or sister with admiration and awe. I think we are seeing a similar relationship transition between Canada and the US. I just hope these two siblings remember that we are all part of a North American family and keep trying to play nicely together.

When bad ideas go viral

A decade ago viral videos went viral organically. People shared videos, these went into other people’s timelines, and they shared it too. This can still happen on Twitter, to a small extent, but not on Facebook. Facebook viral videos only happen through advertising dollars. Even that cute cat video doesn’t spread unless it is pushed through. The next time you see a viral video with million of views on Facebook, take the time to notice three things:

First, notice that he video was uploaded to Facebook. It’s not a YouTube or Vimeo embedded video, it’s actually a video that was saved on Facebook. This is so that they can fully track, and have advertisers pay for, engagement.

Second, notice that the video will have some branding on it: A website logo or emblem of some kind. It is being promoted by a company or organization.

Third, notice if it is from someone that you regularly see in your timeline. Your timeline used to be every post from every person you follow, now your timeline is curated and you see some people more than others… but when a friend that’s seldom seen in your curated list shares a paid-for/promoted video, suddenly you see their post in your timeline again.

This becomes dangerous when the information shared is false. Here are two specific examples where this is scary right now:

1. Anti-vaccination propaganda: vaccines have made our world a significantly safer place. Hopefully there will be a vaccine for Covid-19 soon, but the reality is that millions of people will likely opt out of taking it and the virus could linger for years, mutating and making the very vaccine useless. Measles have had a resurgence because less people around the world or vaccinating their kids.

2. False claims about Covid-19 cures and anti-mask groups are undermining the science behind fighting this virus. The most recent viral video, taken down by Facebook, has a doctor espousing how she has cured over 300 Covid-19 patients with Hydroxychloroquine. I wrote about this drug as a treatment for covid-19 here: Trying to find the Truth

It’s one thing to say a drug is useful in helping treat an ailment and yet another to claim it is a cure or somehow preventative (like a vaccination).

I’ve had an argument with some very smart people that think Facebook should not take down videos like this because ‘people should be able to watch them and make their own decisions’. Maybe I’d have agreed with them a decade ago, because the video would have to spread organically and people could share their concerns along with the video. But today, that video will get millions of viewers targeted through advertising dollars to promote bad ideas. And advertisers with their own agendas will feed the video to people most likely to agree and share it with support.

This isn’t an organic process. It’s marketplace advertising being used to market and sell bad ideas, entice anger, and polarize opinions and perspectives. Even the taking down of the video has become polarized with the ‘Leftist social media sites only taking down videos they don’t agree with.’ …suddenly this is about politics and not about the spreading of dangerous ideas.

There are a lot of bad ideas being intentionally spread right now. The scary part of this is that these bad ideas are going viral through advertising dollars spent with an agenda to create anger, divisiveness, and the polarization of people.

And while I’ve focused on anti-vaccines and Covid-19 cures, media outlets have used fake (or carefully edited) protest videos to entice anger and gain clicks and advertising revenue, and used language to specifically pander to specific audiences. The desire to share messages virally has made it so that almost any (newsworthy) viral video you see will likely be one that has an agenda, and that agenda is seldom to give you the truth.

Ask yourself who is behind the next viral video you see, then ask yourself what their agenda is?

A break and a lapse

Well I ended up taking just over a week off of my Daily Ink, with plans to do some writing outside of this space. I didn’t. I did have a wonderful break, including from social media, and I’ve been very slow to return. I also listened to a couple books for pleasure and truly enjoyed the break.

That said, I really didn’t write anything at all, and I’ve let my email completely pile up. I don’t feel bad about this, it has felt good to let go of things. Even today I slept in, had a really slow start and am sitting with my laptop in my back yard enjoying the sun and sipping coffee as I type. So while I’m going to make some observations about how I’ve wasted some of my time, I’m not doing so with any guilt, I’m just making observations around my expectations versus reality.

Writing: In about 9 days of not writing daily here, I ended up making 3 notes in my phone regarding the other writing I wanted to do. I can’t say that it wasn’t on my mind but without a routine and setting time to intentionally sit and write, it just never happened. I planned to do what I’m doing now, enjoying the sun outside while writing, but I never actually dedicated specific time to do so. My rest and relaxation never seemed to include taking time to write.

Meditation and exercise: I missed 2 days of meditation and 2 days of exercise (one of them being the same day) thanks to not having a regular routine. I had a long streak on my Calm app broken, but I started a new one yesterday. Last nights workout was minimal and it took me way too long to do so little. Again the lack of a routine hurt me. Still with respect to exercise, 5 days of workouts in a week is pretty good and I usually take at least one day off anyway.

Diet: I’m not on a diet, but I try to eat well and for the start of the year I was regularly doing intermittent fasting (14 hours minimum) 5 days a week. Covid ended that and I’ve never really recovered, but the amount of junk I’ve eaten the last week is horrible. I forget to eat then gorge on junk and my upset stomach has been telling me that I need to get my eating under control.

Social Media: I didn’t miss it. Not even Twitter. I thought I was going to take a break from news as well, but I didn’t although I should have. I’m disheartened by social media right now. It is polarized to the point the facts and reality no longer matter. Call-out culture, angry Karen videos, quick fixes, miss-information, anger, hate, pandemic fear… it seeps into my timelines and make me want to close my accounts.

The week+ of being off is over, and “I’m back”. While I enjoyed the break, I look forward to building a more consistent routine of fitness, meditation, and writing again, with a hesitation to spend much time on social media for a while yet. It’s funny, I thought I would need to stop writing here to get into the mood to write elsewhere, but in reality I need to keep writing and just choose to write more, (and actually make it part of my routine). I’ve enjoyed myself during this break, but I also lapsed a bit in the routines that I’ve built over the past year and a half, and I’m ready to build these positive routines back into my summer schedule.