Some things never change–except to get worse. Such is the case with social media. We have many friends who use social media in a positive way sharing family stories and events, pictures, happy special birthdays/holidays, etc. It brings the distance closer to know you can reach out. But along with the positives we are seeing the cost of this convenience. Here are the latest negatives: Ireland has levied a $277 million fine on Facebook for violation of privacy laws. Snapchat is accused of and being investigated for possibly supporting the spread of fentanyl. The Seattle School system is suing TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat for their adverse impact on the mental health trouble they purportedly cause students. And the Musk/Twitter mess just gets uglier. After Musk grossly overpaid for Twitter and tried to cut costs by eliminating employees he saw advertisers walk away. Then he reached out to Trump to offer to re-instate his account but Trump now has his own platform and declined. Then he banned 11 journalists from using Twitter–AFTER TOUTING FREE SPEECH. Then–after seeing the hypocrisy of the banning–he re-instated them. Now he faces an unrelated lawsuit that may have Twitter implications. Last year Musk stated that he intended to take Tesla–his car company–private at $420 for each share of common stock. And he stated that he had the financing in-place to complete the buyback of all publicly held shares. He did not have the financing and now a shareholder suit in Northern California threatens to decimate his fortunes by forcing him to a jury trial that could result in treble (read “triple) damages. If Musk suffers the ultimate fate from this suit it may affect his interest in operation Twitter as a loss. He knows nothing about social media, is clearly not a communicator and has fired everyone who could resurrect Twitter over time. The question is: can the Musk ego accept whatever measures he will need to take to turn things around. When we add all these headlines together plus terrorist activity, bomb building, election mis-information and other negative uses of social media, it is questionable whether social media is worth the price. Unless someone finds a way to monitor messages before they are published (and that’s really impossible) we see the whole social media process in a downward spiraling mode.
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