Article archive / November 2020
Originally published: . Volume 11, No. 11. Source pages: 2.
Last month Twitter astounded all 17.5 actual journalists left in the country when they censored an article by the New York Post that was negative toward Biden. Twitter then went on to censor everyone who retweeted the story which included none other than the President of the United States.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey could not have surprised me more if he had pulled his pants down at a Trump rally and mooned the President. He apparently could not guess at the consequences of his actions, which landed him in front of lawmakers to explain his behavior, along with other boy billionaires who've struck gold in the Tron universe.
The parallel to family dynamics occurred to me when I watched the Senators question Mr. Dorsey, who had the appearance mostly of an adolescent. While a full grown man at age 44, he appeared in front of the nation with an earring in his nose and a long scruffy beard, reminiscent of a hippie from the 60s. His answers to serious questions about censorship and First Amendment violations were unsophisticated in my view––neither logical nor convincing.
In a recent documentary, The Social Dilemma, the power of these social media companies is spelled out in detail. While you may be led to think there is free speech and free flow of information on these platforms, that is not what is occurring. The consumer is being psychologically manipulated––often outside of awareness––to achieve the firm's goals. In Dilemma, some of the tech geniuses expressed the guilt and moral concerns that came with their high salaries.
I looked up Jack Dorsey and found that he is known for the life of luxury, not so surprising since he is worth $10 billion. The question, after all, is not that but how much wisdom can an unmarried, childless, 44-year-old man have developed, especially one who is feeling arrogant enough to censor a president.
I have no idea if he has experienced enough pain in life to have developed any wisdom, maybe he has. But wisdom, as we know, does not come from success, comfort or pleasure. It comes from pain.
Aeschylus wrote, "God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer," knew what all psychologists know, that "… against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."
A litmus test of censoring other people's freedom of speech, just because you have the power to do it, may be related to values. Values have changed dramatically over the last 40 years.
In "Defining social class across time and between groups," the researchers show that traditional moral values and principles have gone by the wayside when it comes to "subjective social class" or feelings of status.
The psychological value of one's occupation, education, or traditional morality such as temperance or thrift, no longer significantly contribute to the feelings of status as these characteristics did 40 years ago. Today, it's about one's income.
As to censorship, psychologists have no confusion–we promote free speech and freedom of information as a given. Even if we disagree with the content.
I was raised by two journalists, then fostered by my Dr. Father, LSU's Don Glad, who had also been a journalist before he became a community psychologist. And then further indoctrinated by the great organizational theorists, also keepers of the faith. So, it is fingernails on a blackboard to me to see censorship in this country.
Mr. Dorsey might benefit from a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
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