The Francis Scott Key Bridge has collapsed in neighboring Baltimore after a tragic accident — and social media is full of conspiracy theories. Twitter (I refuse to call it X) is particularly awash in them right now, with idiots and bad actors blaming everyone from Ukrainians to Mossad, but I’ve seen the sentiment crop up on Facebook as well.
Real news about the bridge is incredibly hard to parse through as the scum of the earth, motivated by monetizing engagement, has crawled out to spew the dumbest, crassest, and most hateful things in connection with the bridge collapse, showing just how badly our craven tech overlords have screwed up the social media ecosystem.
Six people are presumed dead, but when has that ever stopped anyone?
One problem I see with the bad faith bridge discourse is the fact that good people are trying to engage with it. It’s natural to want to correct someone when they’re spewing disinformation. Unfortunately, again, engagement is monetized, so by engaging this shitshow, we are giving the freaks and conspiracy theorists exactly what they want.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it is later uncovered that foreign bot networks and paid actors have played a part in amplifying disinformation about the bridge, because that’s what hostile regimes do every time something bad happens in the United States. Either way, the bridge collapse shows us everything that’s wrong with social media today — rationality is boring and doesn’t drive up your numbers; a stupid clown show, on the other hand, will get you posted and reposted.
I’m done with calling this time the Age of Information. It’s the Age of Paid Stupidity. The internet is polluted and difficult to navigate, AI is being misused by the worst people imaginable, and brains are breaking left and right.
Disengaging is the wisest and most sensible option, but like I always try to point out, this doesn’t mean going off the grid in a forest to make hats out of squirrels. Certainly, some people would prefer to do that, and more power to them, I guess, but the one key aspect of not letting disinformation rot your brain is learning to put your phone down.
A conspiracy theorist I will not name because he doesn’t need the free attention has recently revealed that he spends as much as 20 hours a day staring at his screen. He seemed to think this was sensible — actually, he tried to make it seem heroic. This is a guy who once accused me of seducing Mike Flynn, by the way, a person I have never met. You can see the effects of too much screen time on this nutter as his brain corrodes in real time.
One of the problems of too much screen time is that many people, including perfectly well-meaning people, think that it’s noble to be aware of every situation, and to comment on it. And I’m here to tell them that NO, THIS ISN’T HOW IT WORKS. It’s bad for you to constantly view depressing information (or whatever passes for information) that’s outside your control. It’s even worse when you try to habitually engage with it — as it drags you into one stressful online discussion cycle and then another and another. Stop that shit. Block a bunch of people instead. Then put your phone down. Make yourself a smoothie. Pet a friendly cat. Stretch. Read a paperback.
Because Baltimore is not far from me and I have several good friends who live there, I am especially annoyed and dismayed by the current situation. Disinformation in a crisis isn’t just bad for your brain, it can actually endanger people.
But, at the end of the day, I try to take my own advice. So I am disengaging. I’m not going to argue with the lunatics and the shills. I’m going to prune my plants, then put on some music, put my feet up, and look at some art books. I am going to do the sane things that cause me joy, and not the stressful things that make my brain feel like it’s about to give up and start dripping out of my damn ears.
Image: Maryland GovPics
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