While most of you were busy scrolling through your feed last week, a slow but steady movement gained momentum to #DeleteFacebook.
The social media giant has been mired in controversy after it was revealed it had been selling its data – er, your data – to companies using it for profit.
But, was this really news? Exactly where did we think all that content was going?
Last Friday, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps declared she would log out of her Facebook account for the last time in this, an election year. This from an incumbent candidate whose first term win was largely credited to social media. In a blog post explaining her decision, Helps spoke of persistent misinformation marring her dialogue with constituents. She called Facebook a “toxic” space of “psychological violence.”
It was a moment to pause. If a person running for mayor in the capital city of the province of British Columbia doesn’t need social media – do we?
The quick answer is yes. There are a ton of benefits to social media. For example, the immediacy of it allows news organization, such as the Goldstream News Gazette, to keep you up-to-date with breaking news and community events. It allows people to connect and engage in a different way. That can be very positive or it can be challenging when others aren’t respectful.
And now, more than ever, we need to be aware of the information we are plugging into these sites. Even with strict privacy settings, a small friend list, and closed groups, the information you post online is out there and you really have no control over who sees it.
There is at least one lesson to take from the reaction to Facebook’s dirty little secret, and from Victoria’s mayor decrying the community relying on the world’s worst game of telephone for pertinent information: critical thinking is a skill seldom used online these days.
Instead of rushing to erase your existence from the cyber realm – which is just more smoke and mirrors – it’s time to “put social media in its place” as Helps said. The information highway that has captured our brains still exists, just like it did before social media came up the on-ramp.
Just think carefully before you post or repost.