Saturday, August 20, 2022

The Problem With YouTube (and Society)

I remember telling somebody that the internet makes it easier for you to interact with everyone in the world, and also that it makes it easier for others to reach out to you, including scam artists.  It would certainly seem that the same is true for every other kind of horrible person out there in the world. 

I am generally not prone to posting a thing as soon as I see it, especially when it's already five years old. But I do believe this man deserves your attention.

 

The comments on this video are heartbreaking.  You need not read many to get a feel for the harm being done.

Youtube contains cesspits, everywhere.  And its algorithms seem to eventually lead to them, every time.  Of course, the same goes for Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, and all the rest of the social media/ user generated content platforms.  And we are using similar algorithms to shape and perhaps even govern our societies; for nearly everything we attempt to learn from our ever-growing datasets.  And they are all black boxes for those who didn't write them, and even to some extent for those who did.

Never have we had such a dire need for better Christian formation and education.  In the meantime, may God have mercy upon us.

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