Any time a complicated conversation is carried out on social media, oversimplification is an inevitable consequence. Nuance is easily lost on platforms designed to reward the opposite.
The current #MeToo movement has seemed at times poised to spin fully out of control, but thankfully enough female voices have risked backlash to urge caution and ensure those prepared to overreach don’t undermine the larger effort’s credibility. Actress Jodie Foster joined the ranks of #MeToo’s sympathetic critics on Monday, cautioning against adjudicating guilt through social media mobs in an appearance on “CBS This Morning.”
“I’m not a sound bite person. I’m an hours person. I like to talk about things for hours. I’m not very good at 140 characters,” Foster said. “I feel like it’s such a complicated issue, and it is a watershed moment.”
The decorated actress referred to the current movement as “necessary” and an “amazing moment in time,” but also argued, “In order to do it justice, I think we need a bigger dialogue and we need a much more complicated dialogue.”
“I think we’re all looking forward to how we can heal, and we want to hear other voices,” she said. “We want to hear the other side as well, in order to really change things.
“Justice by Twitter is not the right way to go,” Foster said.
As our conversations move increasingly online, it seems more and more the constraints of online platforms encourage us to develop bad habits, arguing in sound bites that don’t capture nuance and reflect the tribal impulses social media rewards.
Foster’s critique of Twitter in the context of #MeToo is apt, but her larger point about “hours” and “soundbites” is important as well. There is no reason we can’t carry out important conversations both on social media and in person, but we should be more aware of how our social media habits influence offline discussions, in terms of content and in terms of frequency.
