The current Palestinian attacks against Israelis are encouraged by social networks. Social networks also help the Islamic State recruit members on the World Wide Web and propagandize its bloody activities. Social networks have inflamed tempers around the world and polarized almost every country. Don’t think it is just Brazil that is now polarized. In the U.S., it is even worse. The same goes for Israel, Turkey, Russia, Germany, Argentina, Iran and Lebanon.
In the United States, Obama can be the greatest hero or the biggest villain depending on whom you speak to and where you live. In Syria, Assad can be a perpetrator of genocide to some and to others a hero for combating Islamic terrorism and defending minority religions, such as Christians. Erdogan literally divides Turkey down the middle with his ambitions to be some kind of new “sultan.” In Lebanon, there are those who hate Hezbollah, those who tolerate it, and those who support it and are members. In Iran, some dream of democracy. Others think the regime of the ayatollahs is democratic.
It does not matter where. Social networks are radicalizing people’s opinions — and it is this radicalization that causes violence, as we see on the Intifada Facebook, as an Israeli wrote in The New York Times today. His father died after being stabbed by a Palestinian terrorist, incited by social networks.
In Brazil, especially Sao Paulo, I am scared by the polarization, especially around Mayor Haddad. Some idolize him and consider him to be the best mayor in the history of Sao Paulo. Others assess him to be the worst, someone who is destroying the city. What seems certain, in all countries, is that center and good sense are ending. People don’t want to hear from those who have a different point of view anymore.
The writer ignores a fundamental axiom of Marxism : the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. The real CLASS STRUGGLE is reflected in this social media polarization. As a democratic Socialist I want to know ALL points of view. I want nobody silenced by ” more balanced ” ruling class bureaucrats. It is respectable drivel to assume that TRUTH and SANITY are always found in the philistine middle.
I can see why establishment news media feel threatened by the political independence of COMMENTS. Just recently I heard a right wing radio talk show host in Rhode Island ( Gene Valicenti, 630wpro.com ) suggest on air that newspaper COMMENT opportunities should be banned-not monitored but BANNED. I don’t worry so much about polarization as I do about the suffocation FREE SPEECH.
The TRUTH itself is always and everywhere subversive. TRUTH cannot serve the oppressors and exploiters of this world.
Too bad for them that TRUTH has a SOCIALIST ring to it.
[http://radicalrons.blogspot.com ]