This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
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"The thought that so many people get their news from social media really is scary." - Rush Limbaugh
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),
If Mark, Sundar, Jack, Jeff, et al. actually wanted to make social media and the world a better place, a much better place, they could do so simply by verifying who's actually posting a given post.
When I was a kid I wrote a letter to the editor of the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press stating that the paper should expand its op/ed pages to include more op/eds, particularly the work of columnists.
[You were a, um... unusual little dude weren't you?]
So I've been told.
I don't remember anything about how they went about verifying I was me but I do remember the paper's policy was that any given letter to the editor, if the author wished it to be published, required such a verification. Each published letter included the writer's name and what neighborhood or suburb they were from.
Imagine what Twitter, or Facebook's comment section, for example, would be like if participating H. sapiens had to signup, and be verified, before tweeting or commenting?
Before proceeding, I must acknowledge that I came across this idea, one of those why didn't I think of that it's such an obvious solution sort of ideas, in one of Andy Kessler's weekly Inside View columns in the Wall Street Journal.
[Before proceeding, I must point out that since you're slightly obsessed with your personal privacy, and that Marcus Mehlmar isn't even your real name, you're not making much sense.]
For the record, Dana, the name on my birth certificate is Mark Mehlmauer. I'm not hiding, My nom de plume aesthetically pleases me.
[I'll bet you drink your tea with an extended pinky.]
I consume my go-to beverage — decaffeinated, sugar-free, ginseng added, iced green tea — in a heavy, toxically masculine mug, pinky retracted, thank you very much.
Mr. Kessler pointed out that if one had to admit to who (whom? I can never... nevermind) one was, the average H. Sapien might be a bit more circumspect when posting one's thoughts for the whole world to see.
The primary benefit, in my semi-humble estimation, is that Mark, Sundar, Jack, Jeff, et al. would hate it. The inventory of one of the Billionaire Boys Clubs' most lucrative products (surreptitiously harvested consumer data) would be greatly reduced.
But far less content moderation would be needed and it would be harder for cellar-dwellers — and the minions of China's Emperor Xi, the warped fat-ass that runs North Korea, and the Pooteen — to manipulate useful idiots all over the globe.
[I don't think you're allowed to say fat-ass, isn't that a thought crime? It's certainly not very gentlepersonly.]
I agree that it's not a phrase a gentleperson should deploy carelessly, however, there's a fat-ass dick-tater that presides over a starving citizenry exception. Also, Wokie dogma permits members of a given victim group to refer to others in the same victim group by commonly used epithets.
For example, since I'm a fat-ass and a geezer, I'm entitled to use both of those words.
Mr. Kessler points out that businesses that advertise on the internet would love carefully registered users. They would know who they were actually trying to appeal to.
While we're at it... If I were king, or even just an executive order happy president, I'd order that people could easily opt-out of being tracked and having their data sold to whoever is willing to pay the price.
By easily I mean not having to deal with buckets of... bafflegab composed by legions of lawyers. I'd also order that updates to site policies would be written in everyday language and that users would have to sign off on them.
[This is madness! If this sort of thing was implemented...]
Big Tech, saturated with alleged Wokies, would be forced to stop claiming they're a force for social justice while simultaneously picking the publics' pockets.
[What about free speech?]
What about the fact the social media sites claim they can censor as they please since they're businesses, not The Fedrl Gummit? What about the fact certain ginormous, globe-straddling corporations have the power to shape global public opinion in ways the fat-ass from North Korea can only dream of?
What about the fact the social media giants could offer both a version of their sites for civilized gentlepersons not afraid to admit who they are and the version they offer now?
And/or,
A (mostly) uncensored third version (nothing currently illegal and no doxing) wherein all the whack jobs and would-be revolutionaries can wage virtual war, gleefully oblivious to normal, well-adjusted gentlepersons — who could follow them for the entertainment value.
Speaking of dick-taters...
Source unknown - meme banned by the Emperor
"Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, checked into the Imaginarium, along with their TV interview host and fellow Montecito mansion-dweller Oprah Winfrey.
The royal couple’s new $15 million home is not far from Oprah’s $90 million estate. Recently in an interview, the two detailed all the racial slights they suffered from the apparently inveterate racist British royal family."
Emperor Xi's National Peoples Congress voted, 2,895 to 0, that going forward, only Chinese "patriots" (people of proven loyalty to both China and the Chinese Communist Party) can run for office in Hong Kong.
No comments so far from either the NBA or LeBron James.
Poppa loves you,
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