The private lives of political leaders have long been fair game for opponents and investigative reporters – and, increasingly, amateur internet sleuths and online provocateurs. When the high-profile individuals are female, whether leaders themselves or their wives or partners, studies show that the scrutiny tends to be harsher and more speculative.
“The scandalization and personalization of news is profitable,” observed the Character Assassination and Reputation Politics Research Lab, a joint initiative between an American and a Dutch university. However, this trend not only “diminish[es] the public standing or credibility of the politician, but … also divert[s] attention from substantive policy discussions.”
Progressively powerful internet-enabled searching and sharing amplifies both facts and fictions, honest persuasion as well as embedded prejudices. This week, as the Monitor reports, a Paris court convicted 10 individuals of “degrading, insulting, and malicious” cyberharassment of French first lady Brigitte Macron. Seven of the defendants claimed their posts were meant in jest or constituted legitimate debate.
Within democracies, it seems, the demand confronting citizens and governments is how to better practice and protect core values that undergird freedom of speech and expression – as well as civic dialogue that avoids rancor.
In the United States, cherished First Amendment rights and definitions of truth, lies, and intended malice are at the heart of a defamation lawsuit that Ms. Macron and her husband, Emmanuel Macron, have filed in Delaware. They allege that conservative American influencer Candace Owens uses a business model of spreading false information, and is running a “campaign of global humiliation” in promoting claims that Ms. Macron is male by birth. With 5.6 million subscribers on YouTube and over 6.5 million on Instagram, Ms. Owens’ statements have a wide reach.
The online proliferation of contradictory or unverifiable information from thousands of sites and content creators often leaves social media followers confused and at a loss over what to believe. How can individuals protect themselves from being targeted or taken in by such claims?
For Rev. David Wilson Rogers, a minister and regular media contributor, the imperative for social media users and consumers is “refusing to outsource our moral and spiritual judgment to a machine, a meme, or realistic video.” As he wrote in the Carlsbad Current-Argus last month, securing “the future of truth” requires exercising “our character, our discernment, our humility … prayerful reflection and diligent research.”
Nearly 120 years ago, during an era rife with the yellow journalism that perhaps presaged today’s internet “slop” and “rage-baiting,” it was just such discernment and prayerful reflection that led religious pioneer Mary Baker Eddy to found this publication.
Her object in doing so – “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” – is a fitting standard for today’s online culture.
