Avoid social media for political news

February 24, 2024

Every so often I see someone post on social media asking their friends why they have not spoken up about the war in Gaza: “If you are speaking out about Palestine and condemning the genocide, I love seeing your courage and solidarity. If you are not saying anything I am disappointed at best.”

This assumes social media companies will protect your free speech rights. Social media companies are private companies. They have opaque processes and make arbitrary decisions, often by AI robots you have no right to appeal. You can join and post inside their walled garden, but they can also kick you out.

Using social media to consume news and politics is not healthy. There are endless streams of content for news. Many people feel addicted to to social media. It doesn’t feel right to add my opinion to the firehose.

The other issue is using social media for news doesn’t change the fundamental toxicity of following the news. Reading the “right” news instead of the “wrong” news doesn’t make reading the news any less addictive. Reading more news doesn’t make you more informed, it means you have spent more time reading news at the expense of other activities you could be doing. At most you should spend about 10 minutes reading the news every day. It’s hard to miss out on anything because if there is anything really important, your friends will tell you about it.

Make no mistake. The war in Gaza must end. People should not feel pressured to post their opinion. If someone doesn’t speak out, it doesn’t mean they don’t stand in solidarity, it means they are not choosing to feed the algorithm.