Member-only story
Disinformation Ruins Lives. What Can We Do About It?
I only keep Facebook because of my Mom. Data privacy concerns aside (and they are big concerns), I don’t find much value in connecting with people from high school, but there is something satisfying about seeing my Mom sharing pictures of my son with captions like “the handsomest little man!” Her church ladies ooh and aah in the comments. I can’t help but smile.
Whenever I log in, there is one tab that lights up: friend requests. Since I don’t use the site anymore, I generally let these sit unattended. Every now and then, I use the requests as a way to peek into the lives of people I haven’t seen in a long time. It’s perplexing to see so many requests from people who never wanted anything to do with me in the past, but it’s even more confusing to see the lives of people I did know changing in such divergent ways.
The guy I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with as a teenager is now rocking a trans pride flag in Alabama (that’s bravery), and she has a new name. Meanwhile, the grown woman who hit on me as a teenage boy is out on bail after killing her live-in boyfriend. She’d love to reconnect. A retired lawyer my dad knew smiles in a professional headshot. I remember his using a racial slur in front of me in my youth and wonder what he would think of my black girlfriend.
