On the Values of Silicon Valley
You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people; and you are not to [a]jeopardize the [b]life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:16 NASB
Slanderer – Leviticus 19:16 is the foundation for the prohibition against lashon hara. What is lashon hara? “Lashon Hara is any derogatory or damaging statement against an individual. In Hilchot Deot 7:5, Maimonides supplies a litmus test for determining whether something is or isn’t Lashon Hara: Anything which, if it would be publicized, would cause the subject physical or monetary damage, or would cause him anguish or fear, is Lashon Hara.”[1] The Hebrew phrase is Lo telech rachil b’ameicha. The important word here is rākîl (rachil). TWOT clarifies:
(rākîl). Slanderer. This obscure masculine noun is used only six times in the ot. The initial occurrence is in Lev 19:16, “Thou shalt not go up and down as a slanderer among thy people.” The other usages are in Jer 6:28, 9:4 [H 3]; Ezk 22:9; Prov 11:13a; 20:19a. The meaning is invariant in all occurrences. The translation “talebearer” found in some cases in the KJV and “gossip” in some versions is too light as the contexts show.[2]
But of course, you knew this. You’ve read James 3:8 (“But no one among mankind can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”). You might have experienced the results of some form of slander. You know it’s just wrong. But did you know that social media deliberately employs slander in its business model?
“As the work of Jon Ronson and others on ‘public shaming’ has shown, the internet has allowed new forms of activism and bullying in the guise of social activism to become the tenor of the time. The urge to find people who can be accused of ‘wrong-think’ works because it is part of their business model.”[3]
Murray makes another telling point. “Social media is a system of ideas that claims to be able to address everything, including every grievance. And it does so while encouraging people to focus almost limitlessly upon themselves.”[4]
Social media creates a fictitious world obsessed with self. Everything about it focuses on the status of the person using it, and everything about it measures the value of the person on external acceptance. Social media is, in its essence, lashon hara. Oh, that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for “good” reasons. It just means that the success of the entire platform is built on encouraged, unrestrained slander of others.
Topical Index: lashon hara, evil tongue, slander, social media, Leviticus 19:16
[1] https://torah.org/learning/halashon-review1/
[2] White, W. (1999). 2165 רָכַל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 848). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (Bloomsbury, 2019), p. 108.
[4] Ibid., p. 110.
Facebook has nearly 3 billion users making it the largest social media platform in the world. It’s power of (dis)information and influence cannot be discovered or discounted.
And a mandatory brevity on Twitter taught people to sharpen their wit and sarcasm skills and learn to focus their criticism to fewer than a 140 characters,( approximately 20-30 words) though now doubled to 280 characters in order to increase use and revenue. This enhanced skill has made lashon hara an art form, as well as a weapon of warfare against humanity and YHWH. TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15 second videos on any topic and allows people to follow and comment on their favorite “influencer”. An interesting Bloomberg survey of teens and tweens found that 98% of middle school and high school students would like to be a social media influencer and many are planning on making that their career.
Instagram, Pinterest, SnapChat,Twitch, LinkedIn. WhatsApp, Reddit and Tumblr, Friendster, Meetup and a myriad of other social media sites all vying for access and ascendency into the psyches of our vulnerable and impressionable youth. Indeed these platforms have become a $50 billion financial tsunami and it directly impacts every family in America, including my own , as I have a handsome and savvy teenage nephew who makes a six figure income from his followers on these new and insatiable unsociable media platform. A teenager! Though interestingly through Yah’s mercy he just became a “born again” mega church Christian. It will be interesting to follow how many of his followers will now forsake their social media darling and idol and to see if the “new wave” of young believers in Jesus, addicted to social media will savage or salvage his budding social media influence.