Quiet as It’s Kept

In an era when social media has turned us into a mass population of self-appointed experts who have an opinion on everything, and never shut up about anything, it may surprise you to learn that one of the top concerns among a group of high school newspaper editors is that young people are being taught to stay silent. “We want our publication to be like a small-town newspaper, one that gives its readers a comprehensive view of how our community thinks and feels, and one that advances the cause of seeking the truth and reporting it. But our readers cannot get a full view of the community when people are too afraid to talk. And people are definitely afraid. This problem, as we see it, is much bigger than our school newspaper. The era of social media came with the promise of hyper-democratization—no longer do you need to be an established pundit to get your message out. (All of us, born in the 2000s, struggle to imagine it any other way.) Although there is much to celebrate about the ways in which the internet has connected us, the permanence of the internet has given rise to censorship pressures—both individually and institutionally. People are so nervous about saying the wrong thing that they choose to say nothing.” Jacob Blane, Annabelle Garland, and Sam Gross in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The New Chilling Effect. This would be a less troubling trend if the decision to remain silent were spread equally across the sociopolitical spectrum. But it sure seems like those with political power (and the worst takes) are more prolific and loud than ever, and those who need to speak up the most are quietly waiting for what they hope will be the end of this political era. As the school newspaper editors explain: “If large groups of people decide that silence is safer than risking disagreement, and if they instruct children to be silent in turn, our fundamental right to free expression will crumble from within.”