Gutenberg and Tim

When Gutenberg invented the printing press (1439), he didn’t realise the implications of his creation. Equally, when Tim Berners-Lee developed the internet, Twitter, Facebook and an inversion of society were not part of his plan.

Yet, here we are.

Yesterday, Jack Dorsey announced that Twitter will ban political adverts; Facebook announced that they wouldn’t.

I am certain there is more to all of this than the newspaper headlines. At what point does an advert become political? Is there a threshold? Will Twitter employ censors to determine what is OK and what is not?

It is likely we wouldn’t have had Obama and we certainly would never have seen the wiggy one was it not for social media.

Would the world be better without?

Great and awful events have happened throughout history sans likes and tweets.

We can never tell.

It would be different.

I wouldn’t be typing now. (What did I do before blogs?)

I don’t therefore believe that Jack is good, and Mark is bad. That would be an oversimplification.

Where now?

History will continue.

And we will live-through the consequences.

The wheels of change are unstoppable.

This is deterministic defeatism.