Facebook’s Monster of Selfish Ambition and Fame

CNN had an opinion piece recently that’s right on the money. It’s called “Facebook has created a monster it cannot tame” about the live streaming function and the horrific and gruesome having no space and distance between any monster’s camera and any audience’s eyeballs.

This feature—in the hands of the godless—is a monster.

An evil genie that will not go back into the common decency bottle.

A Pandora’s Box of selfish ambition gone amok and evil spreading unfiltered at light speed.  

What social media has accomplished (via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even online up-to-the-minute news sources) is to shorten the fuse between fire and explosion. It’s instantaneous.  Defamatory words, lies, and insult can no sooner leave the speaker’s lips or laptops than they become firmly lodged in the minds and hearts of the readers. It’s the dark side of the online disinhibition effect for individual communication, the removal of boundaries of feedback by perceived anonymity, and it can even display itself as fake news for dissemination. You know, what used to be called defamation and slander.  Lies for the purpose of harming other people.  The Bible talks about lies and false reports as evil (Exodus 23:1). 

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me?  Oh yes they can and with social media’s Pandora’s box, there’s no time for a conscience to intervene.

Evil can be perpetrated now in real time. An insatiable quest for fame, a new thrill, a bigger outrage drives some people to do the unthinkable and project it for the world to see as their selfish ambition becomes the next Internet sensation. It’s like the person acting out in the classroom to get attention that they couldn’t get through excellence…amplified exponentially…and revealing the darkest recesses of an evil heart.

It’s up to you, the viewer and the reader, to be careful what you take in to your mind and bring into your home.  It’s a monster that threatens your legacy.

Christians, as a temple of God, we ought to be more mindful like many of us were taught in that children’s Bible song, “Be careful little eye what you see…”

I am harping on this idea of legacy because I believe we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg as the most evil of selfishness is unleashed upon a society of rubberneckers and gawkers. The same motivation that causes gapers delays on the Interstate is at play in the viral nature of what is evil being witnessed by everyone and anyone.

I have not watched any of these viral videos of beheadings, torture, and death. I don’t think you should watch them either.  Why?  Because I don’t want to become a monster of my own making. Would you?

I believe what enters through one’s eyes and ears can change a person, even desensitize them to the world of evil. We don’t need to witness aberrations and atrocities (and by doing so on social media feed and fuel their future) in order to know they exist. Christians, be wise about what you’re partnering with in your access of media.

2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?

Baiting tomorrow’s monster to get attention has no place in the Christian heart after evil worms its way through the eyes and the mind.

For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 17 “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” 18 “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”