Social Media ‘Cooling Off’ Periods

I’m a big believer in free speech. Society cannot be free and prosperous without it.

Yet, social media is making me feel like some of us can’t handle it.

Most of you heard or read about basketball star LeBron James’s “You’re next” Tweet from Wednesday, April 21st, which targeted Officer Nicholas Rearden who shot and killed 16 year old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio the prior afternoon.

LeBron deleted his tweet later on Wednesday, after a lot of criticism due to the shooting’s circumstances- Miss Bryant mid-swing, wielding a knife at another teenager, for instance. As he himself acknowledged: “I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate.”

The entire country, still reeling from the Derek Chauvin trial and the death of George Floyd, was thrown into another exercise of partisan and polarized madness.

LeBron’s tweet is merely the most recent example in a long list of people using social media to rush to judgment and causing more problems than actually solving them. There are plenty more. After the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, the self-titled ‘front page of the Internet’ Reddit went into ‘Batman mode’ along with much of the Internet to try to find the culprits, even creating an entire subreddit (forum) entitled ‘FindBostonBombers.’

On April 18th, just after the FBI released grainy pictures of the suspects, a Redditor (a Reddit user) suggested the missing Sunil Tripathi as a culprit. Several people added fuel to the fire, including reporters. Soon enough, Sunil’s family was being harassed. Sunil’s body was found on April 23rd, death by suicide drowning, well after the actual bombers were apprehended. (The subreddit wasn’t all bad-check out The Atlantic’s interview with one of its moderators).

Going even further back, the entire circus around security guard Richard Jewell for his involvement in the Centennial Olympic Park Bombings in 1996 is prime evidence of the media going wild-and not in a good way.

All these incidents illustrate the need for a “cooling off period” surrounding controversial events.

Here’s a tentative list:

Acts of Domestic Terrorism (Oklahoma City Bombing)

Mass Shooting (Sandy Hook)

Suspicious Police Induced Death (George Floyd)

Political/Icon Assassination (JFK or MLK)

For 48 hours after such incidents, social media sites-Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit-should allow only news organizations to publish the details of what happened. If video is available, then they should let the video speak for itself as much as possible.

Sometimes, reports may have to ‘fill in the blanks’ especially if the camera angle is poor, multiple videos have to be spliced together or poor evidence of other sources exist. Luckily, one video is enough to tell the story in this case. News organizations should strive to let the event speak for itself as much as possible.

It took me some searching to find the above video and photos. I choose them because they are almost entirely absent commentary or speculative ‘filling in the blanks. They show what happened, period.

Commentary from both media outlets and average people would not be permitted until after 48 hours. Afterward, all commentary is permitted as long as the commenter watches video of what actually happened. It would be easy to have the video automatically play before the user could do anything else-think of it as an unskippable ad. A short quiz afterward would ensure most people would try to watch it. Internet sleuthing, such as in the Boston Bombers case, might need its own category, yet efforts such as the FindBostonBombers subreddit would be subject to the 48 hour limitation.

Of course, there could be some tweaking of the policy. You could allow individuals to comment sooner-as long as they viewed all available evidence first or limiting the amount of comments in the initial 48 hours.

LeBron issued his tweet about 24 hours after the Bryant shooting. With another day to cool off and process into, would he have done something so aggressive? Maybe, but having more time to process emotional events while letting the truth circulate tends to calm, not agitate things.

The FindBostonBombers subreddit listed Sunil as a subject within 24 hours of the FBI releasing their photos. With another day to let the images circulate, would the misidentification have taken place? Maybe, but there would’ve been more time to stop the wildfire, seeing as the suspects were apprehended by 9pm on April 19th.

This idea doesn’t suppress free speech. It doesn’t target a particular group or groups. It doesn’t regulate commentary once the 48 hour window has ended. It simply allows for more people to see what happened and not get caught up into their own emotions, which is what should happen anyway.

For those asking: why not urge civility and restraint? Believe me, I wish some well-written calls to action were all that was necessary. However, I’ve seen far more prominent figures than me try and fail. I also include myself in needing the 48 hour window-I get too worked up sometimes and need to be saved from inserting my foot in my mouth.

Social media allows for civic participation at levels not seen before. It’s usually great the common Joe and celebrities can say what they want, when they want it and how they want it. However, for all its merits, there are hardly any rules of engagement. There need to be some for charged, divisive events which often represent wide-spread social ills-George Floyd’s death, for example. As we all can see and may have personally experienced, Americans can get nasty real quick.

The cooling off period will help people slowly but surely get back to some degree of civility, and tamper down on conspiracy theories, lies and misguided vigilantism.

At least, what have we got to lose?