“reject the culture where facts themselves are manipulated”

Today was a day for the history books.

What struck me in Joe Biden’s inaugural speech today was where he called for us to "reject the culture where facts themselves are manipulated and manufactured", and to “end this uncivil war”. We now have a president who understands the power of lies and what it’s done to us. A leader who will tell the truth and not perpetuate lies for his personal gain through social media.

COVID has made us very isolated and because of that we have a human need to feel a sense of belonging. So, we go to social media to feel good about ourselves. We get likes and find friends and groups who agree with us. Without being able to go out and hear other perspectives around you, we get stuck in believing what we see on our social feeds as the truth. We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. This isolation can cause us to not fully comprehend the reality we used to share as truth.

The problem with social media is the quick spread of false news. More people want to see exciting news rather than boring news, so it’s spreads like wild fire (and social media companies make more money off of this too).

The Twitter ban on President Trump was necessary, but much too late. To have a president who understands that big tech companies need to be regulated, so that it doesn’t come down to Twitter to make a decision like shut down the president’s account. I think this will come to light more this year. I’m not sure where it’s going to go - we are so far in it right now that we don’t even know what the effect of it is yet.

This is a time where we can heal and move forward. We can listen to others with different opinions and still accept each other, we can start to trust each other again, we can look up from our phones, we can make eye contact with people around us, we can see each other as humans, we can breathe. And we can move forward as one country and one human race.

It was refreshing to hear him call for unity. “We've never failed when we work together.” A call for progress over fighting. "defend the truth and defeat the lies". That’s what we have to do.