Peter's Place

On the evening before five very important primary elections were to be held on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, supporters of Bernie Sanders noticed something quite strange taking place on Facebook: groups advocating support for Bernie Sanders, which have been a primary vehicle for disseminating information and mobilizing support for actions, were disappearing. According to Lauren E Stafford, a social media consultant and administrative assistant, many of the affected Bernie Sanders Facebook groups have more than 50,000 members. "At least ten such very well-known and popular groups were removed during Monday evening's attack, leaving hundreds of thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters in the dark," she claimed. Evidence implicating a coordinated effort by Hillary Clinton's campaign and/or her supporters was quickly uncovered as some Clinton supporters, such as Casey Champagne, bragged about being part of that effort in the "BROS 4 HILLARY #GiveEmHill" Facebook gr...

Huffington Post's Healthy Living editor Lindsay Holmes recently published an article advocating unfriending seven types of people from one's social media circles. The premise of the article is that getting rid of the seven types of people she describes will create a healthier life. I disagree. First and foremost, unfriending someone is, in most cases a hostile act. Hostile acts such as unfriending someone require negative energy. This is the exact opposite effect Ms. Holmes purports to achieve in her suggestion of unfriending the types of people she suggests. There are less hostile and non-hostile ways of disengaging with individuals one may consider to be irritating. As I set forth below, I believe that the vast majority of "types of friends" Ms. Holmes suggests unfriending are those one may very well wish to keep in their circles, as such friendships -- whether "in real life" or "through social media" have real value in our lives. 1. T...