The only thing we have to fear is fear itself...

...nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes. (Of course, these words come from FDR's famous first inauguration speech in 1933.)

I am truly and deeply depressed by the palpable sense of fear that has run through so many of the thoughts, comments, and posts during the last two units of our course. Perhaps the current debate around Bill C-51 and any number of other almost Orwellian things happening at the moment has heightened my sensitivity, but I truly despair for civil liberties and personal freedom of thought at the moment. Then again, it just may be the wild oscillations of the pendulum which inevitably seem to accompany significant social and technological changes and innovations.

I refer, of course, to the great fear--verging on some sort of hysterical moral panic--about the bogeyman of social media and the evils they stand poised to wreak on our (professional) lives. We need to remember that "social media" as we have come to know, love, loathe, and fear them are less than a decade old--Facebook (being abandoned in droves by young people as it becomes the domain of creaky middle-agers), Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and all the others have only existed for a handful of years. Still, they seem to have followed an all-too-familiar trajectory. First, there is the utopian discourse about their astonishing potential to make our lives unimaginably better, empower the dispossessed, speak truth to power, and so forth. And now, we have reached the "cautionary tale", profoundly dystopian phase, in which all we hear are horror stories about how they will destroy our lives. The truth, as always, is not only in between, but probably terribly mundane and boring.

Nevertheless, I am truly and deeply troubled by the fear, paralysis, and aversion they have provoked. Yes, there are indeed idiots out there who happily post and share wildly stupid things--things which may indeed come back to haunt them in some way, shape, or form at some point down the road. (Or they may not. The EU has recently decided that people have the "right to be forgotten" on the internet, and to have Google search results removed--although how this can possibly be implemented is an entirely separate question.) Yes, potential employers and others have become aware of social media and often conduct at least cursory searches of candidates' online existences (although few, if any, employers have developed HR policies or their own professional codes of ethics about this area). But that does not and should not mean that reasonable people become terrified, paralyzed, and--by FAR the worst of all--self-censoring.

Whatever any of us do for a living, we are also human beings--creatures with profound social needs, and persons with ideas, interests, and passions. These may be quotidian things (food, hobbies, etc). But they may also be much more substantial--social, cultural, and political. Personally, I happen to fall into the latter camp. Perhaps because of my former career as a journalist, am am still very interested in, and care deeply about, "current events". I am, today, appalled by the wanton destruction of priceless historical artifacts and manuscripts by ISIS idiots in Mosul. I am also passionate about the FCC decision regarding "net neutrality". I care deeply about the potential implications of Bill C-51. I am infuriated by Alberta's continued reliance on unsustainable non-renewable resource revenue to fund the public purse. I'm also interested in things much more "trivial", like popular culture and whether a dress is white/gold or blue/black.

I have, for several years, posted, shared, tweeted, retweeted, and even sporadically blogged about all kinds of social, cultural, and political things. Sometimes those various activities have included rants, profanity, sarcasm, vitriol, and potentially "inappropriate" comments, humor, and who knows what else. They OFTEN include strong opinions. But they are things I find interesting and/or care about. I don't post naked selfies (or any other kind of selfies, really), drunken stupidity, pictures of cats or food, or mindless platitudes or affirmations. So perhaps I engage in some form of "self-censorship". But I do not--and will not--self-censor my thoughts, nor will I particularly trouble my pretty little head with hopelessly feeble and essentially pointless "privacy settings". (Anybody who is half-decent with computers and who has even the slightest desire to do so can easily circumvent those; and besides, official, pseudo-official, and downright covert state apparatuses are surveilling everything anyway--Hi, NSA spooks!) Could some of my social, cultural, and political personal expression online come back to haunt me? I suppose it's possible, but that's a risk I'm MORE than willing to take. I can rest assured that I am not terribly likely to be offered a job by the Conservative Party of Canada any time soon, but that's more than fine with me, as long as I'm not also hauled off to jail for something I tweeted (which can and does happen in many places around the world).

This is why I found Michelle Clark's TEDx talk particularly depressing and chilling. She, like so many others, has already succumbed to and completely internalized the mistaken belief that we must censor what we say and do online--which is so perilously close to censoring what we say, do, and think offline as well as to be utterly terrifying. THAT is what strikes fear into my heart--the internalized fear that results in self-censorship. We cannot simply succumb to the Thought Police. I don't want this to sound like the demented ravings of a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but when we become so paranoid that we start to self-censor not only deeds and words but even thoughts, then we have entered a world that is truly frightening.