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Social media can cause poor mental health outcomes, and there is evidence that it is designed to be addictive. But given my line of work, deleting my accounts is not something I can realistically do. With many choosing to walk away, what can those of us who stay do to ensure a healthy relationship with these platforms?
Two recent stories in the Australian attack Murdoch University academics who supposedly described Anzacs as 'killers' and detainees on Manus Island as 'prisoners'. The stories display a poor understanding of the academic role, and the nature of 'critique', which is not to merely to present all arguments as if they had equal merit.
The thrust of the Morrison government's changes is one of heavy handed and forced deferral, outsourcing government policing by vesting it in social media platforms. Israel's Cyber Unit, by way of contrast, has been seeking the same object via more subtle means, collaborating with Facebook and YouTube to remove errant posts and content.
The difficulty for journalists reporting emergencies is they're having to make important and hugely impactful ethical decisions right in the moment. In balancing those tough decisions, how often does the common good start drowning in what will draw the most attention from an audience, and away from competing news organisations?
Gillette's video on toxic masculinity provoked an uproar among a surprising number of men. As a woman of the baby boomer generation, a survivor of intimate partner violence and of rape and attempted rape as a young woman, I have been waiting for a long time for the issues conveyed in the video to be a focus of conversation.
There are those who say we live in an era of outrage, but the outrageous and inhumane was always there; it's just that we are finally addressing it. It was demonstrated by the passing of the Medivac Bill, and the safe return of Hakeem Al-Araibi, that the voices of Australia, rather than the powerful few, are finally being heard.
With the evidence of a cobbled prosecution case against Julian Assange irrefutable, the at times previously mute press has become concerned. To get at Assange, goes this fear, is not to punish a narcissist keen to make etches in history; it is, by its very spirit, to attack the entire vocation, cause, and role of journalism proper.
Most of the requests wanted my slant on the racist cartoon, the blackface incident or the girl who wouldn't stand for the anthem. They weren't interested in delving into the systemic issues which led to most of those other situations. Most wanted Aboriginal opinion for the purposes of producing clickbait.
These events cannot be scrutinised in a vacuum. Fairfax and Nine might still merge. Sky News has made a deal with WIN to broadcast across its regional networks. We will need a robust national and public broadcaster if we are to have an alternative to entertainment posing as news, propaganda as analysis, and advertising as fact.
Instead of following platform prompts to connect more, or logging out entirely, it could be time to get mindful of our audience and develop ways to nourish the online relationships we enjoy. After all, intimacy is still important in the age of the high follower count.
The tradition of court jesters licensed to criticise the king exists in many cultures. It is part of a broader tolerance of satire in which the foibles and sins of the great can be safely criticised. The Shakespearian fools are typical in representing the view of the common man as he speaks truth to power. Printed cartoons stand in this tradition.
Humans are inherently social creatures with a need to converse, yet we live in isolation and mental distress in greater numbers than ever before. Does the ready desire for argumentation online that some thrive on come from wanting to feel, well, something — anger, certainly — rather than passively watching the world whir by?