The Social Networks: Twitter; Face-Book…

I must confess that I do not have a dog in this hunt… because I have said in past blogs that I am almost a Luddite vis-à-vis computers and their attendant outlets like the growing social networks. Perhaps, I am going to be biased in favor of as many communications outlets to be had because of my legal training… where much emphasis from the first day of law school is placed on the import of freedom of speech codified under our sacred First Amendment. In this vein of opining, permit me a little latitude because a couple weeks ago, one of the prominent preachers in the Tri-State area told his flock not to visit Face-Book and the like because it was the catalyst for many a hookup… resulting in separations, and moreover, divorces - there was quite a debate in the media if the preacher had a right to chastise his flock about the usage of the social networks.

I conveyed this story to show that that there are limits to everything… not that there should be any curtailment of the social networks’ use, but notwithstanding my bias… these networks make it convenient to do bad things. Yes, I know… it is up to the person as to how much he or she values fidelity towards marriage and that no social network compelled anyone to cheat. I supposed the preacher looked at the social networks like the concept in law, which is called an “attractive nuisance:” for example, it is akin to dangling candy in the presence of children to entice them to engage in bad behavior – of course, these adults in the preacher’s congregation are not children, but we can see the apt analogy.   

Anything in its absolutes is bad; you know the old adage, one cannot cry fire in a crowded theatre... notwithstanding the right to free speech. Case in point, we can laud Wikileaks under the rubric of ‘freedom of speech,’ but at the expense of outing Intelligence operatives… who are deep under cover protecting us? I will surmise that the typical user of the social networks do not think so deeply and think that they should have unfettered access to say and access the networks… without any limitations. But there must be ‘checks and balances,’ whereby, now one can go on any social network and spread disgusting rumors about anyone… with cyber space being the protective buffer for such cowards. No one can effectively police this kind of behavior unless one is raised with ‘decency,’ but we seldom see this decency restraint on the social network.    

The genie is out of the bottle and the social networks are in most part a good thing because they make our lives convenient. I know for certain that there are people with great minds working on updates to add or to replace the existing networks. The horse and buggy telephone land line did not cause infidelity, bullying, or the spreading of rumors… and to borrow a phrase from the Second Amendment lovers: guns don’t kill people… nor do the social networks in of themselves cause bad behavior. LOL!