Commentary: Llewellyn King - Social media and the mob factor
Llewellyn King
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Social media has an unimagined, unequaled, uncontrollable, and unpredictable ability to mobilize groups of people for antisocial action; to take a sliver of society and turn it into a mob.
Last month this new force in society was on display, from mobilizing anti-vaxxers in Los Angeles to the U.S. Capitol riot, resulting in five deaths, to the run-up of a weak stock, GameStop, by 1,800%.
These events, coupled with some strains of political thought being restricted on Facebook and Twitter, along with the outright banning of tweets from Donald Trump when he was still in office, have some in Congress convinced something should be done — often the precursor to ill-conceived legislation.