Irish Examiner view: First salvo is fired in an inevitable conflict

The social media profile of the Premier League who are taking part in a social media boycott until Monday. Picture: James Warwick

It is wishful thinking to hope we can return to a world before social media changed human communications almost as much as the invention of mass printing did all those centuries ago.

It is not, however, by any means delusional to hope and insist that these lucrative-beyond-comprehension platforms be managed to accentuate the positive and reject the toxic. Indeed, that objective, despite the hubris of the increasingly powerful data empires is an obligation neither individuals, corporations, nor governments can dare shirk. The malign influences they facilitate cannot be ignored indefinitely.

The hatred stirred by the Trump aberration or Sinn Féin's sinister data gathering and secrecy are reasons enough to sound alarm bells but there is much, much more — as any victim of online bullying or racism can testify.

An opening salvo in an inevitable confrontation between civic society and data carpetbaggers was fired yesterday when British football’s boycott of social media began at 3pm. It will continue until midnight on Monday. The boycott is to highlight and stop the poisonous abuse directed at individuals.

This protest, in the context of the universal scale and power of, say, Facebook may seem paltry but it would be a mistake of gargantuan proportions to underestimate what can be achieved, and prevented by mass boycott or protest.

Just ask the profit-driven plutocrats who proposed a private, members-only European Super League.  

Football’s boycott of social media continues from 3pm on Friday until midnight on Monday.