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   It’s long overdue but many people in the news industry and millions upon millions of non-media people are slowly coming to the recognition that many, if not all on-line mediums, are not necessarily good for humanity. On-line platforms are almost completely unregulated. Facebook claims that they do fact checking. A few years ago I asked how many FB fact checkers there were and the ratio worked out to be one for every 90,000 users. That automatically tells us that fact checking is, minimal at best,and at worst, non-existent. In some countries there are no fact checkers as the billionaire owners have come to realize that fact checkers cost money and are basically ineffective.

    In the past few years, it has become evident that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make up many thousands of stories and videos, be they fact-based or fiction. And lately it has become apparent that be it AI or otherwise, sexual abuse, promotion of falsehoods and violent scenes are being spewed out by the thousands on web based venues.

    I have heard of a number of people who are abandoning social media. I think what it will boil down to is being very careful as to what sites a person visits. For example, town or community web sites should be reliable and are needed to announce emergencies and promote last minute changes to events. Newspapers, like the one you are holding, can’t always get the news out quick enough being weekly papers. That means community web sites are important.

    It should be noted that FB sites for newspapers, radio and television stations are banned in Canada by Facebook. The Canadian On-lineNews Act declared that companies like FB and Google would be required to compensate domestic Canadian media as they use our material with neither recognition nor compensation and have done so for years. Google agreed that they would pay money towards Canadian Media. Facebook refused and, as a reaction, shut down Canadian news media FB sites.

    As criticism of unrelenting and uncontrollable on-line material increases, Jen Zoratti of The Winnipeg Free Press said on the weekend about X (formerly Twitter), “Respectfully, a primary communication tool for whom, exactly? Who is still using it, besides bots, ragebaiters and the creators of child sexual abuse images? There’s nothing to save, nothing to make better. It’s a social media platform run by a billionaire who allows this stuff to happen. The decision to leave should be easy.

    How bad does it need to get, exactly, to make people log off forever?”

    Good question. Zoratti’s column, along with my own observations and reading other peoples’ frustration has led me to resolve to cut way back on the use of social media. I plan to head back to reading a book a month. I prefer Canadian histories and biographies. The local papers, radio and TV stations should be our go-to sources for the most of our media with the only usage of social media being local sites. Other social media should be used very carefully and sparingly.

    Interesting that the Bible verse of the day for Jan. 25, the day I wrote this column speaks about being careful what you read and think about. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8 New International Version.

    I feel moved to take that advice but not a lot of what is on the internet falls into the standards of that admonition

    Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.