You Have a Responsibility to Share and to Share Carefully

First published on August 21, 2019

I was thinking this week about the awesome power of the Internet to spread wonderful things. I was lying in bed with my wife listening to a playlist of the songs which were the table names at our wedding a year ago. They are each beautiful pieces of songwriting, holding within them - in our eyes - all the beauty and tragedy of love. And what a wonderful thing it is that we can create that playlist and listen to it. More than that, what a wonderful thing that if we want we can share it with others; then they can experience the curation that Emma and I did after lifetimes of listening to music at our best times and our worst times and everything in between.

Not only that, but I can create another playlist featuring all the songs from our wedding: the readings, the table names, the songs that were played live by us, our family and our friends and even the song which we danced together to in the traditional first dance.

And I can share that with people, sharing those beautifully expressed sentiments of love and life with others who may not know the beauty of these particular bits of the songwriting by John Lennon, Brandi Carlile, Gill Landry, Noel Gallagher or others. I can share it here, on Facebook, via Whatsapp, via all these amazing platforms, sharing more love and beauty and depth of human understanding out in the world.

But of course that's not all that happens via the incredible power of the Internet to connect each other. Facebook's original mission was something like 'to connect the world' and how could that be anything other than good, we thought?

Except everything has a light side and a shadow. And what happens when everyone is connected is not only that we have the opportunity to share beautiful pieces of songwriting with each other, but that we have the opportunity to say horrible things to each other anonymously. It turns out that being massively connected leads to lots of people saying really awful things. Racism has reared its head again in English Football again this week, with players and managers calling for more work to be done by social media companies to prevent this kind of thing happening. The social media companies, though, are caving under the strain of their sudden responsibility: who and how do they ban people? More, is it their job to enforce free speech? Are they the right people to have the responsibility of censorship? Is it moral to remove someone from Facebook because of their political views, for example, when Facebook now holds such a vital place as a communication method? Would you remove someone's access to a telephone line because of their political views?

These are the kind of impossible decisions that social media companies - and governments -are currently wrestling with.

And what, might you ask, does this have to do with me sharing a playlist of songs about love? Well, I believe each of us has a responsibility in our online interactions. We each of us has more connection and more opportunity to find an audience than anyone at any earlier point in human history. With more people around the world connecting to the Internet every day, that last sentence has probably been true every day of this millennium and probably will be true for many years to come.

With that opportunity comes responsibility. In order to steady the ship we are all on together, each and every one of us has a responsibility to make a contribution. To share the things they have created. But also to decide: am I sharing something which will make the world better? Am I sharing something which will make the world worse? Does this comment help? Does it hurt? Does it come from the wisdom and skill of the higher parts of us or the vindictive, baser parts of us?

Each of us has that responsibility in every moment. Social Media companies are struggling with their responsibility and governments are struggling with theirs. And I hope they all deepen their understanding and come up with solutions to help. But what I know will make a difference right here, right now, is if each of us takes more responsibility. So each day, make your decisions. Decide to be a part of the solution to the challenges of polarisation and separation and division in the world. Decide, each day, too, not to be part of the problem.

You have a responsibility to share your work: to create it and to share it to make the world better. But you also have a responsibility to share carefully and wisely. To be as much as you can the person you are on your best days.