The outrage machine

It's often said that Twitter is one if not the most toxic platform in social media. The idea being that the initial concept of sharing snippets of thoughts, became the hunting ground for those who love virtue signaling and those who simply enjoy trolling.

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Now, in the name of honesty, I'm guilty of the latter, but I've always tried to troll with a purpose. Mocking idiotic ideas, using sarcasm, etc. That being said, the outrage machine as it's commonly referred to now, is taking the hunting, as I call it, to a whole different level, attempting to shape public opinion, or worse create the illusion of one.

It's because of this very reason that "audio is uncovered", old footage is "found", you get the idea. Some of the media being shared, that is the "proof of wrong doing" is not fabricated per say, but re-wrapped, taken out of context and also hyperbolized as to plug into the latent outrage we seem to default to these days.

This is the case for the unearthed footage of Bernie Sanders, being too cozy with the Soviets and more recently Tucker Carlson, from Fox News, being found to be bigoted and nasty.

To me this is the equivalent of revealing that the best shape for wheels is cylindrical, a statement that should evoke no more excitement than announcing an upcoming announcement. In other words, anyone who is informed, who can participate of these conversations objectively should not be surprised, since they were never secrets to begin with, in both cases but of course this expands to a broader conversation.

I'm not entirely sure when this new social behemoth started to grow it's thorns, but it's apparent that in the #metoo movement era, there is a considerable force of "justice seekers" who enjoy virtue signaling to the point of it becoming their favorite hobby, or to be a little more blunt, their preferred method of ego stroking.

I don't truly expect this to go away, at least not for the foreseeable future, since the excessive accessibility to the pool of ideas, makes it to where the social filtration system has been completely removed. Everyone has a voice, and yes, that is a good thing, but not all voices have meaningful things to contribute, and that is not outrageous for me to say.

Pivoting back to my motives for this write up. Do I equate the outrage machine to anti-freespeech sentiment? Not really, because there's literally no gag holding anyone from speaking out, but nothing can shield us from social consequence and thus if you are operating as a pundit or a politician, this is something for you to always take into consideration.