All previous drawings: https://linesbyleon.com/inktober/
Thursday Thoughts: Opinion Media
Was social media inevitable? If it didn’t make money…
Should we call it what it really is: Opinion Media?
Isn’t that what free speech is? Having a platform for expressing your opinion? Perhaps every post should have a watermark that says, “This is an opinion.” Unless it’s been fact-checked.
“Who’s going to do that? Isn’t that impossible?”
“Impossible? Yeah, I think you are right.”
So, who do we trust? News outlets?
News stations all have a social media presence. Why? Many people are not watching/reading traditional news platforms, so they had to in order to keep their market share. Surely, we can trust them.
Ummm…News channels choose what news to air, and that news is what will get them an audience. We hope that they fact-check. We hope.
Maybe we should call it Ego Media?
Likes and follows and re-tweets, oh my! It seems that many are in it for the attention and ego stroking.
“Look at me! Pay attention to me. How great am I?”
Bandwagon Media?
It didn’t take long for corporations, businesses, politicians, and celebrities to join the masses once the masses had joined.
[whispering] If you build it, they will come…
Maybe the more appropriate name is Shaming Media or Hide-Behind-the-Text Media.
It became easy to be a bully. Anyone could do it and reach a wider entourage without direct contact with the victim.
We hear that social media platforms are responsible for low self-esteem and skewed self-image in younger users. That used to be the arena of print, TV, and movies. But young people are not using those for the amount of time they are on digital devices. The amount of screen staring and the reliance on technology just us up for failure.
Am I anti-social media? I am when it is harmful, and harm comes in many different versions.
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Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, and a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words.
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Lines by Leon 
The answer is to trust nobody unfortunately, especially where money is concerned.
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