Social forum platforms like Facebook, seem to have such incredible promise as an electronic “public square” where everybody can participate, where people can debate issues, present supporting data and evidence easily, and enable everybody to become more informed at a deep level about all the myriad things impacting their lives. But the reality is, it seems very few actually want to engage at a deeply thoughtful level, and instead use the platform simply for reinforcing their already entrenched beliefs, and attacking and ridiculing anyone who tries to challenge them. Can Creator share why this ideal of an electronic public square, has so fallen short?

The reason that this idea is not fulfilling its promise is not the fault of the concept or its execution. It is that people have been corrupted and hold many false inner beliefs and are programmed relentlessly below conscious awareness to adopt many distorted perspectives, and to be triggered with messages that appeal to inborn prejudice previously installed through subliminal programming. This compounds the negativity that can be amplified through triggering someone who is sensitive to an issue and programmed to feel passionately a particular perspective, and also programmed to react strongly and perhaps even with violence when encountering an opposing view. When people are manipulated in this way to ignore certain topics altogether and be complacent even when they see the world crumbling about them, what good is a social media platform for sharing knowledge and information? They, in effect, will not benefit because their mind is closed. The same is true of the carefully cultivated believers of all kinds in religion or in politics who embrace their party come what may and their membership, whether open, honest, and egalitarian or demonstrably criminal in their actions in some instances. This is how people of one faction will overlook almost any transgression of one of their followers but will hold their opposition to account for the merest failing or weakness, real or imagined. So in a sense, the social media platform is not constructing what it promises but is, in effect, only reflecting what has been done subliminally to influence popular opinion. There is a potential still for opening minds and hearts using social media for a free exchange of ideas and for whistleblowing exercises of value to warn people about wrongdoing and the dangers of current events inimical to the best interests of humanity and its survival. Time will tell who will win in this ongoing contest, the interlopers programming you behind the scenes, or your seemingly free exchange of thoughts and feelings via social media as a tool of persuasion.