Pandemics and Social Media

A couple days ago, a friend asked me to break down the recent bill aimed at mitigating the economic impact of the ongoing pandemic.

My response was long and, inevitably, destined for this blog:

That’s 852 pages (https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748eas.pdf)…

Here’s my thoughts (prior to reading it):

Like I said before, I am VERY distrustful of the media when it comes to interpretation. You go to CNN – it is bad… you go to FOX – it is bad… you go to NPR – it is bad. They all have their spins, and with some networks/organizations, how bad it is might be directly proportional to how desperate they are for views. Each time you open up a WP page or any other site, it registers as a view… which benefits their advertisers… which justifies the money spent on ads.

A while ago, I wrote about the sheer numbers involved:

“Just for the sake of understanding what figures I am pondering, a look at the combined cable TV advertising revenue from Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg was around $2,505,200,000 in 2017.

Two… point five… billion dollars… and that wasn’t an election year.

Digital revenues…?

…$90,391,816,000.”

I distrust the media, and I am not alone… A google search of “distrust of the media” doesn’t bring up many headlines from any of the main news organizations – .org, .edu, and only a couple of .com sites populate the first page of the search. Why would they publish articles on why they shouldn’t be trusted, after all…?

Getting back to the bill: it would take me a while to go through it all, but I think that it may be too little, too late. Like fighting a house fire with a garden hose – it may look like something is being accomplished, but the reality is far from the idealism behind the act.

I think we can be monumentally stupid creatures sometimes. “Stay home” recommendations are offset by idiots going to Spring Break. “Wash your hands and develop good hygiene” is negated by open coughing, unrestrained sneezes, and people licking fucking toilet seats or food in grocery stores.

It was only a matter of time before a virus of this scale showed up, really. Our population, and density in some places, has grown extremely large, and, like with any other species, diseases start showing up when there are numbers which allow for the natural evolutionary process of viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Ask any hunter why they are vital to culling the numbers of a certain animal and you’ll get something along the lines of “keeping the numbers down so diseases don’t start popping up.”

We are living in a time where the human race knows no natural predators or major bloody conflicts (ones where thousands perish in a single battle). Because of that, we have become complacent and plentiful.

I hate the fact that this sounds grim, but this is the way I see it. I may be completely wrong, and I hope I am… but the economic damage of this virus hasn’t been fully appreciated by most, and the Band Aid of this bill might work, but a LOT of things have to work along with it…. and we tend to only think of things on an immediate and simplistic level. If that weren’t the case, then we would have NEVER allowed for China to be as economically vital to our economy and we would have initiated controls to reduce the impact MONTHS ago… like when everyone was paying attention to the impeachment trial and all of that nonsense.

I clearly remember reading stories about this back in December – this is why there have been some odd posts here and there where my mood may have seemed… ominous… but no one would have cared then, just like they don’t care that much beyond what they are being told by their comforting sources of outrage and bias reinforcement.

We’ll get through this, but I don’t think we will be the same as we were at the beginning of December. 

“The regulations say that you can complain, but the result will not be the one you expect.”

Of course, I cannot just let things go. The idea of how social media is driving this current crisis just wouldn’t go to bed quietly.

I decided to take a look at pandemics within the past two generations…

• Smallpox 1877-1977: 300 million deaths in the 20^th century.
• Encephalitis lethargica of the early 20^th century: estimated 500,000 deaths.
• Spanish flu 1918-20: 21-50 million deaths.
• Asian flu 1957-58: 1-4 million deaths.
• HIV/AIDS 1960-present: 30 million deaths.
• Swine flu pandemic of 2009: 18,449 deaths.
• Ebola 2013-2014: 11,325 deaths.
• Coronavirus of 2019-present: 33,599 deaths.

I also made an interesting, but rather obvious, observation on the whole matter:

At no time in human history have we had to deal with a pandemic with social media.

That is the game changer for this.

The influence of social and traditional media today redefines crisis response on so many different levels. The spread of news and information is instantaneous – which can be both good and bad. Resources and materials can be summoned and redirected with response times measured in hours rather than days or weeks; at the same time, information can easily be distorted through ignorance, carelessness, or unforgivable malice… creating so much interference that it becomes nearly impossible to detect and deter such interference.

In “Continued Observations,” I hinted at an angle which is disturbing in both intent of such perpetrators and the outright gullibility of the possible target audiences: the idea that we have forgotten how much of an impact relatively minor foreign influence had on our media and political discussions/activities.

Taking a look at three major social media outlets, the reach is impressive:

• Twitter: created 21 March 2006, gained prominence as a social networking platform in 2009 when it eclipsed MySpace in popularity. As of this writing, the rate of Tweets is 8,907 per second.
• Facebook: created  4 February 2004, 1.66 billion daily active users in December 2019.
• YouTube: February 14, 2005, from their own press releases: “2 billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month and every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views.”

Public reaction to pandemics like the one we are currently experiencing and those in the future will continue to be shaped by social media and networking… but in ways which were never intended or expected. It is difficult to predict where we are going with all of this because there is nothing familiar about any of it to anyone – historians, economists, epidemiologists, sociologists, logisticians, and (most definitely) politicians and media celebrities.  

What might be expected is that the cycle of uncertainty and panic will grow as the cyclic reporting and the desire to have something to report – even if it is regurgitated Tweets, memes, and Facebook posts – overrides rational and calm thought.

It is interesting that this thread of ideas I have been on have been featured in one of my favorite channels, “Smarter Every Day.” For those interested, Destin’s series have been very enlightening:

How Trolls on Reddit Try to Manipulate You (Disinformation & How We Beat It) – Smarter Every Day 232:

It’s been documented by both the European Union and the United States of America that Russia, Iran, China are all spreading disinformation online about the corona virus pandemic… (@00:08)

Who is Manipulating Facebook? – Smarter Every Day 215

…[A]ny time you combine two billion people in one location, people are going to try to exploit that for money, power, and influence. (@ 00:07)

The Manipulation of Twitter – Smarter Every Day 214

I have this phrase that we use a lot, “political grace.” If the point of these attacks is to divide us then proactive, intentional unity has the potential to be an effective countermeasure on the personal level. Maybe we should just not assume the worst of each other. (@24:58)

Manipulating the YouTube Algorithm – (Part 1/3) Smarter Every Day 213

Now the key to a good lie is to convince you that there is no deception. (@06:14)

Because if you’re producing really partisan content, particularly sensational stuff… you’re able to capture engagement and get people paying attention. Because particularly right now in a highly partisan, polarized country, people are looking for that stuff. And they’re not necessarily paying a lot of attention to who the source is. (@08:32)

Why Your Newsfeed Sucks – Smarter Every Day 212

Number one, who is behind the information?

Number two, what’s the evidence?

Number three, what do other sources say? (@02:40, 03:17, and 05:09)

The Future of War, and How It Affects YOU (Multi-Domain Operations) – Smarter Every Day 211

I would tell you that the the speed of human velocity, of human interaction, is that a rate never before seen. (@15:16)

This type of conflict is based on deception and the most important deception is to convince you that you’re not at conflict. (@25:58)

I believe the biggest threat right now is division. They’re gonna find the division within our society and they’re gonna try to amplify it. I would like to submit for your consideration, a countermeasure. A way to get through this modern bombardment, in this new battle space that we haven’t experienced before.

If they’re trying to divide us, I think the way to get around this is proactive, intentional unity. We can all do this.

We all need to be more conscious of what types of content we’re consuming online.

What are we liking?

What are we sharing?

How is that affecting our minds?

Is it affecting the way we treat people, both online and offline?

If we extend patience and political grace, not just to those people we like, but also to those with whom we disagree, these maneuvers in the cyber domain meant to divide us, simply will not work.

Political grace.

Basically, the art of disagreeing well. This is the ultimate countermeasure to this kind of attack. (@27:06)

The pandemic is a problem, but it isn’t the only problem. Our reactions, our perceptions, and our passive acceptance of everything we are presented is the problem.

We are in times which will be noted in history as the first direct challenge of a digital society… Exciting, terrifying, and the possible catalyst for us to emerge much better than we ever thought we could be…

Read, think, and WASH YOUR HANDS.