Final Blog: "On-line Tattoos"

               

(Please laugh at my pun of a title)

    Juan Enriquez gave a talk on Ted Talk on humanity and the internet. And it really got me thinking about my online presence. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Facebook can be really horrifying when you think about it. Selling out your information to companies who wanna sell to you. But one thing all these platforms have is when you post something, that’s there forever. Sure, you can delete it later, but how late is late? If you post something about Black Lives Matter that doesn’t quite paint a nice picture of them, you may change your mind three years later and have second thoughts about the movement, or even vice versa. But that post you made is still out there and has probably been seen, shared, and commented on by bunches of people. The numbers grow like bacterial reproduction.

               And now, with job applications happening mostly online (and thanks to COVID there even less in-person interviews) you get to judge an entire person on probably some semi-personal issues that don’t belong in the workplace (religion, politics, etc.). One could argue that the internet is where you see people show who they really are, well aren’t we all guilty of a few stupid things? A few unresearched posts, possible fake news we forgot to fact check, maybe some unpopular opinions, and in a world where political polarization is even being worked into algorithms for what kind of posts or YouTube videos you can see, that can be checking off probably half of the country for a possible job. Is it ok to judge someone on some stupid posts? How far can it go? Who decides if the post is even stupid?

               This has got me thinking about deleting a lot of my social media accounts and “starting over.” I want to get rid of faces that Facebook can track down, I want to delete videos where I might’ve said something by accident and didn’t even think much of it, even YouTubers are quitting because things about them a few years ago are being brought up (except for PewDiePie, he’s still kicking). A family member of mine ended up deleting his Facebook account because of how negative it was and he kept on getting attacked by family members and “friends.” But luckily, he’s been a lot happier.

              From now on, I can't think twice about what I'm saying, I have to triple check my posts in fear of being painted as some kind of monster. Fake News and assumptions are the bread and butter of the online world.