This is an open letter to all of the smart, informed, interested, and compassionate young people of my generation.

Dear Facebook,

Social Media has become a platform that most of us around the world have come to rely on for everyday news, and communication. The good news is it is effective at that goal. The bad news is, it is effective at that goal. I'll explain, there was once a time when we had to communicate at least over the phone, so we could hear what the other person was saying, or even better, face to face. Now, we can have conversations all over the world, and never have to physically know who we are talking to. Great right!? Wrong! People have become overly bold and they have no idea how to interact with real people anymore.

Political correctness is subversive.

Few questions about the New Zealand massacre coverage.

All About Censorship

A few days ago, there was an email that came in from work. In essence, it said to be careful what is posted on social media because it can come back and bite us in the ass. Today, Rudy Giuliani proved this with an accidental tweet that implies he believes something that many Americans do as well about Donald Trump. And just wait until word of this gets back to Trump, it will not be pretty. Though it is unclear what, if anything, will be said about it—after all, after firing Jeff Sessions and pushing off a press conference out of deference to mourning former President George H.W. Bush, Trump has to use his time to try and discredit the Mueller investigation. So, there's a chance that "Uncle" Rudy's tweet will go unnoticed or at least not talked about.

Before 2016, I had very little knowledge of, or interest in, US politics. I’m a middle-aged Canadian woman, and I’ve always lived in Ontario. I’d barely ever expressed an interest in the politics of my own country, let alone those of the US. In my personal experience on political matters before 2016, talking politics was related to screaming matches and racially-charged banter between my father and whomever else would debate him, and it turned me away from politics at a very early age.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity..."

We live in a new modern world where some grade schools offer coding classes and social media is checked right after waking up in the morning. Technology has grown so fast in the past decade that it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with all the change. With anything new, there are bound to be negative impacts on society. While social media is an amazing tool used for connections and interactions, it can also be a place where people can spread hatred while being anonymous.

Millennials spend large amounts of time on social media, hence the reason it has become the platform most used for the spread of misinformation. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and every other big brand social media outlet all started out with their own respective purposes. As time went on and the market moved forward, to stay competitive, each outlet added more features within their respective software. All of the apps aforementioned all have a news feature, but the pretenses upon which they were founded do not have a direct need for one. Facebook started out as a way for friends to network with each other, and potentially see friends of friends, but it is now one of the biggest outlets responsible for "fake news." Twitter originated as a simple way to share thoughts with the world in 140 characters, but it is now home to massive amounts of misinformation. Social media has been perverted while trying to expand due to the market’s demand.