Recently on FOX News and CNBC Business News I heard many pundits talk about blaming Twitter and social media for the Congressman Anthony Weiner scandal. My response to Mr. Weiner and others like him is “Man up” and take responsibility for your own actions. Social media did not hold the camera. Social media did not take the pictures of the congressman’s private parts, and social media did not post the pictures and social media did not lie to the American people.
The validity of Weiner’s arguments can be compared to the news media blaming the UAW since they were the ones who built the car that drove him to the store to purchase the camera, computer and then back to the Congressional gym where he disgraced his wife, friends, staffers, district and America.
Technology is a tool. It is how that tool is wielded that determines if it is good or bad. Just look at the founding history of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1888, Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite) was astonished to read his own obituary, titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’, in a French newspaper. As it was Alfred’s brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered.
It has been said numerous times: “Don’t write something on the Internet that you would not put on a billboard on the busiest highway in America. No one but the individual tweeters are responsible for what they do. So man up, take responsibility and take the consequences. Anything less just makes you a Weiner.