Final Set of New Year's Resolutions
Chapter 3: A final few resolutions for social media and the rest of us as we enter a new election year
I’m happy to offer a final few resolutions for our beloved social media giants, especially Facebook (now Meta), Twitter, Google (Alphabet), Amazon, and the growing legion of alternatives. Stay for a few more resolutions for all American citizens as we enter an interesting political year.
They’re connected because social media and the internet are where we now turn for news and analysis that informs us and advocacy that mobilizes us. It is time to think hard about our media engagement strategies for 2022.
Let’s start with our social media friends.
Admit it, social media, you did not have a great year. Oh, sure, you’ll claim that your numbers continued to grow, maybe your revenue even increased. But your new competitors, while still small in comparison, are growing even faster. And you’ve become the “anti-social media.” You kicked an outgoing President of the United States off Twitter and Facebook a year ago, and your 2021 was chock full of censorship and cancelations of well-known people, primarily for stating opinions you didn’t like, despite some of it being instead well documented. You really don’t have many friends in Washington or many state capitols for that matter.
Resolve first to fix your censorship problem in the following ways.
Establish a small new network of credible bipartisan fact-checkers who haven’t soiled themselves in recent years. In other words, eliminate the partisan PolitiFact and the Washington Post. Consider conservatives like The Daily Caller or maybe one created by Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire to fact check along with The Annenberg School’s FactCheck.org, which veers left (even though they apparently already work for Facebook). Let them compete, explicitly limited to the expression of facts, not opinion. Let them fight it out where they disagree. And if they agree on a fact check? We’re all winners for that. Maybe JustFacts.com could step in as a truly nonpartisan and independent third party.
You can also stop being hypocritical. Facebook kicks Donald Trump and a conservative children’s book publisher from its platform (later reinstating the latter) but has no problem, apparently, with creepy pedophiles sharing photos. Twitter removed Trump a year ago but you’ll find state sponsors of terrorism tweeting away today. This is your reminder that Ayatollah Khamenei and “Martyr Soleimani” are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and, of course, American soldiers.
Maybe founder Mark Zuckerberg could stop spending $419 million to interfere in official election proceedings and focus on cleaning up his dysfunctional platform.
Resolve to never interfere in an election ever again as you did in 2020 for Joe Biden. Admit you erred when you censored information about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 elections published by the New York Post, America’s oldest newspaper, which later proved entirely correct. According to one poll, the information you censured might have changed voters’ minds. Have you reinstated the New York Post’s accounts on your sites yet? That was an egregious and shameful episode of denying information to many voters. Resolve to apologize for that and set standards that will prevent that from happening again.
Next, resolve to stop making the federal government the primary source of acceptable credible information. Twitter canceled the accounts of an independent science writer and author, Alex Berenson, even though you didn’t contradict or disprove a single factual thing he reported. He doesn’t think COVID vaccines work, based on a growing body of empirical data. He routinely backs up his work and even links to studies that he cites.
Berenson is now taking Twitter to court. I hope he is wildly successful.
You should know by now the steaming pile of contradictions and falsehoods repeatedly uttered by our official health ministries, starting with the World Health Organization and including your patron saint, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci has a long history of ineptitude, if not malice. They’re hardly alone and beware of any government scientists who try to silence, discredit, or cancel their colleagues.
Last but not least, resolve to give up on your campaigns to be regulated like public utilities and instead rediscover and embrace self-regulation. Embrace the free market the way it embraced you when Congress wrote Section 230 in 1996, protecting from you legal liability for things spoken on your platforms. As Facebook - um, excuse me, Meta - now admits, it wants the government to set standards and guidelines for the moderation of big tech platforms.
Hogwash. Having decided to censor well beyond obvious areas, including illegal activity (child trafficking, promotion of violence, etc.), Meta now wants the government to step in. First, they should think hard about that. Second, they might resolve to live up to their existing standards. Congress can help them by requiring social media entities to live up to their terms of service, which they routinely ignore and violate. Some states are stepping in by treating them as “common carriers,” like telephone companies. Lots of intelligent legal experts, including Justice Clarence Thomas, are expressing interesting points of view. Regardless, social media companies are a mess of their own making, with many assists from Google and Amazon.
Resolutions for American Citizens
I’m not about to get personal about your resolutions for 2022. But as Dennis Prager encourages, you should make them whether you live up to them or not.
My comments here are focused on you as an American citizen as we enter another contentious election (with the following one, in 2024, also already underway).
Resolve to analyze your news information sources to ensure diversity of thought, verification of facts and events, and adherence to basic journalistic standards (e.g., relentless pursuit of truth). Take a hard look at how you filter information. Maybe not be so dismissive of information that runs counter to your own views. It is okay to change them based on new information.
In my case, I do not rely alone on national news organizations. I subscribe to various regional media. I found reporting on the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial more honest and detailed in the Chicago Tribune than the Washington Post, New York Times, or any broadcast media outlet. Pick a couple of regional outlets for editorial and news diversity. The Dallas Morning News is another favorite. As for national news outlets, The Epoch Times, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal are where I start my day. I have some favorite podcasts and morning radio shows as well.
Some great websites are emerging for bipartisan or nonpartisan information and opinion sources. Real Clear Politics is one, along with their sister site, Real Clear Investigations. Just Facts is another terrific site that provides both sides of nearly every major issue. There are others but start there.
And speaking of social media, diversify your sources. For example, “un-Google” yourself as much as possible. Rely on other browsers that won’t track or sell your information, including Brave. Use search engines like DuckDuckGo, not Chrome. Investigate alternatives to Facebook, such as fast-growing MeWe. Disengage from Twitter, or at least look for your favorite follows on places like GETTR, Gab, CloutHub, and Parler, although they still feel too much like echo chambers on the right. They’re new; give them time. Find some favorite writers here on Substack, journalists like Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, Ruy Teixeira, Alex Berenson, and Erick Erickson, all thoughtful writers across the political spectrum.
Resolve to limit your watching of broadcast news—cable or otherwise. And question everything you read and hear. Treat media as Ronald Reagan once described negotiating with the former Soviet Union: Trust, but verify.
The INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty was signed in the East Room of the White House on December 8, 1987. In time, the treaty led to the elimination of 1,846 Soviet SS20s, and 846 American Pershing IIs.
At the signing, Reagan said, “We have listened to the wisdom of an old Russian maxim, doveryai, no proveryai – trust, but verify.” “You repeat that at every meeting,” Gorbachev replied. “I like it,” Reagan said, smiling.
I admit bias. I’m a former newspaper reporter and editor, and we’ve never liked the fly-by, 30-second soundbites from our broadcast friends, especially television. The broadcast media is about determining (for you) who is wrong or correct and getting as explicit language (or video) as possible. If you add nuance, you confuse the broadcast media. A radio script for a one-minute news report is 12 lines of 12 point copy on a single (half) page.
As Pew has documented, Americans turn to social media for our information. Social media giants should stop trying to be arbiters of truth. They are untrustworthy. Treat them accordingly—question everything. Resolve to restrict your time on social media networks, especially the censorious cancel-culture cesspool that Twitter has become, and carefully choose who or what you follow for information.
Resolve when choosing which candidates to emphasize their records and agenda, less so on their personalities.
This flies directly in the face of some 230 years of US election experience. We almost always choose the candidate with whom we most relate and connect, even like (or dislike the least). And while most politicians are likable people, it is wiser to look past smiles and rhetoric and pay attention to records and facts.
Consider Republicans who voted for Biden in 2020 because they didn’t like Donald Trump. You’ll notice they’ve been changing the subject if saying much at all these days. I get it; Trump’s brash outspokenness, occasionally rude behavior, and of course, those mean tweets were a turnoff. But Biden? Polls suggest that there is a lot of buyer’s remorse, Democrat and Republican, over Biden’s infirmity, failed policies, and disastrous actions.
And when Joe Biden and his administration inspire songs and videos like this, it can’t be good.
Resolve to develop a set of criteria by which you will cast your votes for Congress, governor, legislature, and other positions in 2022. Build it on issues that matter, such as inflation, COVID management, election integrity, transparency, etc., depending on the position. Base it less on shallow, vapid characteristics like looks, glibness, or well-crafted propaganda. Or because he’s not the other guy.
A personal pet peeve. Resolve to separate the showhorses from the workhorses and promise never to vote for the former, Democrat or Republican. You know who they are, the ones who accomplish nothing other than glib clips, tweets, and interviews in the media, and contribute to our declining quality of discourse and civility. You may cheer them on MSNBC or Fox when they offer the combative soundbite. But they’re never around when the heavy lifting of real legislation is being developed. They never have a seat at the table when real things are being ironed out, but don’t you dare get between them and a microphone. And you’re paying their salary.
It’s one thing to be a fighter. It’s quite another to be a blowhard.
Resolve to demand and watch debates between candidates when possible. Please don’t base your decisions solely on how well they perform, but add it to your criteria and listen to what they say. Beware of debate moderators who increasingly. Debates can bring out the best and worst in candidates (and moderators, sadly).
Resolve to get involved in the election. Ideally, pick a party or a candidate or two and help them where you’re most comfortable, whether writing a check, attending events, or even knocking on doors and making phone calls. It is also great to participate in nonpartisan election registration and turnout activities. And you can do all the above, as I did in Virginia this past election. You will find yourself more connected and engaged in government affairs if you have a connection to the people casting votes on your behalf.
Last but not least, resolve not to tune out the election and be sure to vote. Yes, politics is too divisive, and negative campaigning always seems to be rewarded. And not voting is a choice, too. Do you realize how many billions of people have no real choices at the ballot box? Look at China. Russia. North Korea, Iran. Shall I go on?
Maybe ask your new Afghan neighbors if your 2020 vote as an American mattered to or affected them this past year.
Resolve to think of them when you vote in 2022. And beyond.