It was horrific, what hapened there with Facebook. Viral rumors would spread, the Rohingya were putting sterilization pills into the food supply. People would believe it. Then they would torture or kill those the rumors were about. They would burn down their businesses and homes. There were mass scale murder and rape, whole viliages burned. Because Facebook had displaced local news. What was on Facebook became the reality for so many people. It became an anti-Rohingya echo chamber, the hate would feed on itself.
I think this effect is playing out in western democracies today. Slower, because the US, Canada, or Europe altogether, are much larger than Myanmar. The big ship turns slower than the small. But the same dynamics are here. Viral social media posts make their own twisted “reality”. It’s not just Facebook, neither. It’s lots of others too.
It was horrific, what hapened there with Facebook. Viral rumors would spread, the Rohingya were putting sterilization pills into the food supply. People would believe it. Then they would torture or kill those the rumors were about. They would burn down their businesses and homes. There were mass scale murder and rape, whole viliages burned. Because Facebook had displaced local news. What was on Facebook became the reality for so many people. It became an anti-Rohingya echo chamber, the hate would feed on itself.
I think this effect is playing out in western democracies today. Slower, because the US, Canada, or Europe altogether, are much larger than Myanmar. The big ship turns slower than the small. But the same dynamics are here. Viral social media posts make their own twisted “reality”. It’s not just Facebook, neither. It’s lots of others too.
I don’t know how to stop it.