Are you going to stand for that?

***Warning: the following post contains ranting and getting on soapboxes.***

So, among the big news in the last couple of weeks has been Facebook, Google, and Twitter testifying before Congress about the Russia hacking fiasco. I haven't read a ton about it, but I've skimmed here and there. Just for the record, yes, I think the Russia hacking thing is a problem, and yes, I think that it's high time Congress realize the influence of big tech companies have. However, am I the only one who is also highly offended by their attitude towards everyone else in America?

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. Not a genius by any means, but I can typically reason my way through an argument. So I can't help but be more than a little offended at the attitude of these Big 3 and Congress, who seem to assume all Americans are too dumb to question what they see on social media.

That isn't to say that we all did question what we saw on social media. From what I hear, a lot of Americans, particularly voting ones, didn't actually take time to think through the arguments. But, let's be honest. That's on us. Not on Facebook, or Twitter, or Google. And I'm not a huge fan of a lot of their work, so it pains me a little to say that. And the journalists do exactly the same thing. They talk about us like we are so intellectually barren that if they weren't there to tell us what to think and believe, we wouldn't even know how to put our pants on. And I get that we have to get information from somewhere, and these are the places we get it. But we are responsible for weighing that information.

Could our information providers have done better? Yes. But ultimately, who is responsible for handing over their thinking to algorithms and social media platforms and the press? That one's on us. And since no one else is going to hold us accountable, maybe we should hold ourselves accountable. Let's expect better of ourselves. We deserve it.

Soapbox out.