Fun on Friday: My Love-Hate Relationship With Social Media

I have a love-hate relationship with social media.

On the one hand, I now have a number of really close friends that I would have never met without Facebook. I’m talking people I connected with on the social media platform and now hang out with in real life. It’s pretty amazing to be able to interact with like-minded people across the US, and even around the world.

On the other hand, social media is a daily reminder that there are millions of people out there that I don’t want to know. Not ever.

And I’ll be honest, Facebook and Twitter can be a giant black hole that sucks up both my time and my sanity.

Here’s some pretty sage advice for navigating the world of social media that I find it really difficult to follow – never argue with idiots. They pull you down to their level and then beat you with experience. In the swamp of social media, you can spend a lot of time wallowing with idiots. Been there, done that.

But you can possibly avoid my fate if you follow the advice I gave in a Fun on Friday column a couple of weeks ago: never read the comments. Idiots lurk in the comments.

As I said though, despite the cesspool of humanity out there in social media land, there are some pretty amazing benefits. I already mentioned the shining lights of humanity you can pluck out of the cesspool. There is also just the power of social media reach.

I can get my message in front of thousands of people with the click of a mouse. It has opened all kinds of doors for creative types. I have sold thousands of copies of my book Constitution Owner’s Manual: The Real Constitution the Politicians Don’t Want You to Know About without the marketing arm of a major publisher simply through my social media reach. So, thank you very much social media!

Of course, these platforms have a dark side and we’re seeing that more and more. That dark side is censorship.

One of my friends just got booted off Facebook because she posted some unapproved opinions. So, you can spend years building that great following and have it stripped away because you offended the sensibilities of somebody in the nitwit mob. I know, I know. These are private companies and they can moderate content as they see fit. But censorship is never a good thing – even when exercised by private actors.

Did you hear President Trump recently felt the hammer of the social media censors? OK, not censors exactly, but Twitter popped a couple of Trump’s tweets with the fact-check badge. The prez was not pleased.

Of course, we all know these fact-checkers are unbiased and neutral checkers of facts. I’ll pause here until you stop laughing.

For real, somebody needs to fact-check the fact-checkers. I saw one on Facebook where they slapped a “partly false” label on the photo of a box of masks that literally said on the side, “Does not protect against coronavirus.”

How could a box label be partly false?

Because it could be “misinterpreted.”

I’m glad I have Facebook to point me toward proper interpretations of the English language. *eye-roll*

I’ll tell where there’s a danger of misinterpretation. Some poor fool might misinterpret the pontification of these fact-checkers as actual fact-checking.

Anyway, there’s not much we can do about it. It’s the risk we run using these platforms.

Of course, it’s a different story when you’re president. Trump is coming down hard on social media. When I get zinged by a fact check, all I can do is yell at my computer. Trump can bring down the full force of the federal government down on Twitter when he gets his undies in a bunch. And he’s doing just that.

It’s good to be king.

You know, come to think of it, this is how a nuclear war starts.

“China said what??? By-god I’ll show them.”

Anyway, I need to get this article published and posted to all our social media platforms. That way, you’ll run across it and read it.

And to you fact-checkers – I make no claim that anything I wrote here is a fact. It’s just fun on Friday!

Fun on Friday is a weekly SchiffGold feature by Mike Maharrey. He digs up some of the off-the-wall and off-beat stories relating to precious metals and share them with you – with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Any opinions expressed are Mike’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff. Click here to read other posts in this series.