INTERNET UNLEASHING THINGS WE CAN’T BOTTLE UP AND FORGET

TARA COLLUM | Contributing columnist

Is it a blessing or a curse to live in interesting times? The literal meaning of the phrase is thought to mean to live in times of upheaval and uncertainty.

I always thought, “trust the Midas touch,” was a strange phrase. While indeed in the old story everything King Midas touched turned to gold, this “gift” also turned his family members and food into gold as well.

Television was life-changing for a generation of people. From happy memories like the Beatles playing on the Ed Sullivan Show to the shocking events like JFK’s assassin being killed live on air.

My generation was traumatized by the Challenger space shuttle explosion, an event immortalized in an unforgettable episode of Punky Brewster. And while the Twin Towers being hit and collapsing from every angle was a hard day for North America, it must have been even worse for its children.

The internet, both a blessing and a curse is continually making life in the 21st century a challenge and a trial. The worst of it has begun to slosh up from its fetid depths to contaminate us all.

An overload of information without the literacy to separate the good from the bad, and some continued mistrust of the media and experts have left people adrift in a sea of knowledge and misinformation.

People are exposed to increasingly toxic ideas. One of the worst things I’ve ever heard is that Sandy Hook, a horrific school shooting was a “hoax.” Alex Jones, a person whose fringe website accused the parents of being “crisis actors,” harassed the victims’ families repeatedly and demanded to see the death certificates of their murdered children and even to see their graves dug up.

“It never happened” tactics are being used to dismiss the atrocities being committed in Ukraine, despite eye witnesses, video footage and satellite imagery.

In 2018 I was walking along Yonge Street to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy. My mom who could see from our iPhone settings where I was walking sent me worried texts asking me where I was on Yonge Street. She had seen on the news that a van driver was striking and killing pedestrians near Mel Lastman Square. Saturday is the 4th anniversary of the attack that killed 11 people and injured 15.

This senseless mass murder was inspired by a 2014 mass murderer in California, who left behind a deranged essay to justify his crimes. He believed he was celibate “not by choice,” and instead of doing anything to improve his situation blamed women for his virginity.

I believe in free speech, and I am against book-burning. But the manifesto of hatred against women should have either gone directly into the nearest fireplace, or been placed under lock and key to be viewed only by law enforcement and crime prevention experts.

I am deliberately not naming the killers because studies have shown this can prevent copycat crimes, and rob the killers of the notoriety and attention they crave.

In Ukraine, we can witness the horrors of war on social media, desperate pleas from the embattled steel factory in Mariupol, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleading for help for his under-siege nation everywhere from the Grammy awards to YouTube.

While our technology has enabled direct access to sights we have never seen before in real time, what are we to do with this information? What can we do if our governments won’t help Ukraine? Actions caught on video tape and witnessed by the world, don’t always result in any consequences for the perpetrators.

While I am glad that Ukraine can show us what is happening, and be empowered to ask for intervention, it leaves a knot in the stomach and constricts the throat with helplessness.

The internet has unleashed things we just can’t bottle up and forget.

A tweet from Twitter has always stuck with me. Years ago, when the platform was new, a young girl tweeted how she had been having headaches and went to the doctor and was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given days to live. Many might have read about the woman with severe environmental allergies who used medically-assisted suicide because she couldn’t find safe and affordable housing.

From the private and the personal to world events, war, and Johnny’s Depp’s personal life splashed all over court TV, we are asked on a daily basis to be a witness. It’s a lot to process.

These times are too interesting for me, and keep getting more so by the day.