 Hello and welcome back to Teens on Topic. I'm your host, Cedric Hughes, and today I'm joined by two special guests. Hi, I'm Joseph Hendricks. And Zoe Poppingay. Today we'll be discussing the question, should people be held accountable for their past posts on social media? Now we go to members of the community and see what the people of Davis have to say. To what extent should people be held accountable for their past social media presences? Okay, that's an interesting question because in general I believe that people do change and people do evolve and develop and we should allow people to mature and evolve and develop. So to an extent, for example, if it is for a job interview for something you did at 18, that would be unfair because we all grow up and change. However, if it's the highest position in office, certainly people should be held accountable, especially for things that they say, especially there's discrimination and racial bias, then you'd want to look into that to say how much of that do we really need in the highest place of office. I would say probably the last six months to a year, you should probably look at their posts because anything past that they were probably misinformed, they've grown, they've matured, their opinion might have changed. But anything between six months and a year out, they're probably still along the same line of thinking, personally. I do agree with that, but I also would expect somebody to be immature and responsible enough to say like this post came from a previous point of view that I had and I have grown and matured and I apologize for that. I think they should be pretty accountable. Honestly, if you know that you've made some questionable tweets or made some questionable posts online before, if you've noticed that that doesn't represent who you are anymore, I think they should be responsible for deleting them. And if somehow people are retrieving these social media posts after they've deleted them, because I don't know how the internet works, I think that people should understand that people are able to change and that even though they might have tweeted or posted something kind of questionable in the past, yeah, they might be a different person now. As you go through life and experience different things, there could be something that happens to you or to someone else that might change your mind about something like instantly. I mean, I guess it is a little questionable if it's something that was super recent that they posted. I guess maybe like a year back, like, yeah, within a year, maybe a little questionable. Yeah, after that I feel like people have the opportunity. Well, today we saw a lot of very interesting opinions ranging from impacts that past posts will have on people in their job interviews and their lives as well as the level of accountability that people need to be taking. Zoe, what do you think? I really feel like with social media like Twitter, it's a lot easier to get in trouble for this kind of stuff because I know on Instagram and Facebook it's very filtered. If it's to fit in aesthetic or it's just to fit how you really want to be perceived, it goes through several stages before you say, okay, I'm going to post this. But on Twitter, Twitter was meant to be kind of a stream of consciousness, so I understand how a lot of this is being dug up when people have said stupid things. So what I was trying to say is I guess I just understand where this comes from, but I also understand that people change really quickly. And I know it's such a massive amount of media at our fingertips and just it's never going away. It's really easy to pretend like that person still exists. And so I also feel like lately there seems to be no correct way to apologize or get back from this because I know YouTube communities or politicians, it's not just in politics where people have been getting in trouble for this and people in masses have been doing this thing called cancel culture. I guess it's the new name for mob mentality and so there seems to be no proper way for people to apologize for this. And I feel like that's what really concerns me, that it's just, it's so, with social media, it's so easy to rally behind this one opinion and absolutely shut someone down. There are definitely times where someone has said something really stupid, like the N-worder said something else really racist or homophobic, sexist, where they do need to be held accountable for their actions. But there are some other more minor schemes where they're totally drowned out by like an angry audience. And it's, yeah, it's not even, maybe not even because they believe in it, but just because it's an excuse to get angry at this person who they never liked in the first place. Yeah. I think that's really interesting. Joseph, what do you think? Yeah, I definitely agree that it's like, you know, past situations, you know, they're totally uneducated about certain topics. Like I know like a few celebrities, like they've had their careers like completely damaged over, you know, a tweet that they sent out when they're like 14, you know, completely uneducated about certain topics. So I think there is like a difference between like the age, because, you know, we're teenagers, so we just, we've changed very quickly, we go through different phases. So I think as teenagers, we shouldn't be held accountable as much as like, you know, adults who are saying these like awful things. Yeah. So do you think that there might be a bright line in terms of speech put forward on social media where one should accept accountability from a younger age and where one should not accept accountability? So different things that might have been put forward. You talked about things like homophobic slurs, racism, sexism. Is one necessarily worse than the other in society's view? So are you asking is like the, is the extremity, does that differentiate between how much they should take accountability for something? I definitely think it should because, because to say that one small thing is just the same as one really large thing. I feel like that's way too much of an oversimplification of these issues. And I feel like if we really care about the subject, we should carve out time to take account for each, for the individual cases as we so care about. And also if you also really care about it, not if you're scrolling through social media and you see something that makes you angry, so you hop on the bandwagon and then move on to something else, move on to the next post. I feel like people have every right to care about, I feel like people have every right to care about these things. And it's really great that we have access to all this information, but with the access to all this information is the same ability to take that information, briefly react to it and then dismiss it, just with a swipe. Yeah, and I definitely agree with a more like, when you're, give a more like aggressive approach to, you know, something that you're angry at, rather than just being like, well, here's why you're wrong, like just like widely educating this person. I feel like that's way, like they're not going to apologize as well, if, you know, you come at them all like, you know, itch works and stuff like that. Yeah, and I guess what I really want to know is from people, from the people who demand a cancellation of a said celebrity or an apology, like what would be the correct apology? Like I'm genuinely curious. Well, I think that's a really good, you know, question to put forward, you know, how does one atone for what they've put forward on social media? You know, if it happened so many years ago and at such a young age, you know, what is the correct course of action for one to take? Yeah, I think definitely apologizing for their actions. I've seen recently a celebrity said a slur on their Instagram and they apologized by saying, I'm sorry if you got offended, which is, you know, that's just apologizing for someone else's emotions to it rather than, you know, I'm saying I'm sorry to for my actions and what I said. Yeah. Yeah. Zoe? I know that I've heard a lot of people say, well, I guess prove that you've changed by like capitalist things like donate to charities that you believe in and stuff. But I guess but then when people show that it's also like you're showing off your being a good Samaritan for clout or for something like that. So I guess that's just that's just where I'm kind of confused, like how you prove that you've changed if you ever get caught up in these situations or not. Yeah. Yeah. So do you think that there is a way to prove that you've changed? Oh, wow. I understand. It's no easy question. Yeah. Sorry. It's a really tough question. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, we've seen it before where you take politicians who have put forward, you know, views that are hateful or they've done hateful things before on social media. And when confronted about it, a lot of the times we see or at least in very public cases that an apology isn't forthright, you know, they try and cover it up and defend it. And oftentimes that makes the situation so much worse than it actually needs to be. You know, so, and I think you were touching on that with, you know, with why can't people just come forward and say, you know, I'm sorry, and you touched on this as well. And I think that if, you know, politicians or celebrities or anyone who came for or anyone who had made those past mistakes on social media actually, you know, came forward and took accountability for that. Then I think that we would see the political process going through a lot more in their favor than the lashback that they receive when they try and cover it up or deny it. So moving forward, you know, with the idea of social media posts, we heard in those interviews a lot about age. And Joseph, you talked about this a little bit. So do you think that there again is this fine line between when one should be held accountable and when one, you know, matures enough to be held accountable for the opinions that they express? Yeah, so I think a good maybe baseline is, you know, when you turn 18, when you become an adult. Because, you know, when you're a teenager, you know, you're in a, you're constantly surrounded by people, your age, and you're constantly surrounded by, you know, immature people. So, you know, you get the ideals of the community that you're in. And while you become an adult and you go off to college and, you know, do whatever you do in life, you get more individualism, I feel like, and you get more of your ideas. So I feel like maybe turning 18 would be good. But even then, it's like still like, you know, it's not just black and white, like there's still a gray area. Of course, yeah. Zoe, what do you think? Yeah, I guess in junior high and high school, we're still trying to find our own like groups or our own individuality. It's really easy to fall into that rabbit hole of maybe being on the, maybe not some morally correct side of things. Or, of course, that does not excuse when someone does something like that. But I'm just saying it's, when someone says something like that, when someone says hate speech, I believe that they need to address that they have said that. But I also understand that in high school, there's a lot of stuff about social conformity. So that's all I'm saying. I can understand where it comes from. I'm definitely not excusing it though. I just would like to make that clear. But in college, yeah, when we are trying to find your own individuality, again, that makes things messier. But yeah, when you're an adult, 50s, 60s, you've had a significant amount of life experience. You should have the maturity to know that what you say matters on the internet and stuff. Yeah, and I think that that's a really interesting point to bring up. That taking accountability doesn't necessarily excuse what you've done, but it does count for something. It does show that you are trying to be more mature and that you are trying to learn from those past mistakes. Because I think that everyone has said something at some time that they're not so proud of. And there are those where whatever that view expressed ended up online or on social media. And politicians, celebrities, they're the ones that get dinged for it. So I think that with that idea of taking accountability, it doesn't necessarily mean that we excuse it. But it does mean that we need to acknowledge that people do go through changes. And that those changes are important to their character. And it's important to recognize that when evaluating their character. So do you think that, say in a job interview, like was brought up in the interviews with the Davis community, that an interviewer would be able to fairly assess that change of character? I guess it is, like I said before, it's not just black and white. But I feel like if it's from like five years ago or something like that, like a really long time. I feel like they can be able to see like they can differentiate. Well, like maybe their most recent social media posts show like a different story. Or like maybe when you actually meet them, you can talk about it and stuff like that. So now looking towards the future. So you talked a little bit about call out culture. And I think that that was a really interesting idea to bring up. So in an era of evolving politics and evolving political correctness and the way that we go about having discussions. What do you think is the future and what do you think is going to be the future of civil discourse and the way that we handle changing viewpoints and changing societal standpoints on different issues? I think the importance of the internet in this conversation is so significant because with the internet with everything sticking, it's a lot easier to quantify that this person once existed. Like me, like a past me once existed. And when I put that in social media, it's a lot easier to say that she was once there. And I might have changed, but I know psychologically that doesn't really help when it's there set in stone that maybe once I was there as someone I was not so proudly once before. I wish I could say that better, but yeah, that's my main take on it. I think I understand. Well, thank you, Joseph. Thank you, Zoe. My name is Cedric Hughes and this has been Teens on Topic.