Published by The Rover, February 4, 2025

What do Blake Lively, Canada’s 2022 “Freedom Convoy” protests, the 2016 US elections, and the Qatar World Cup have in common?

Fake news.

Each of them was either targeted by or the result of disinformation that spread online via social media platforms, which is where it spreads fastest. Reputations destroyed, rioting, and an election that shook democracy to its core.

Each of them also answers the question: why should we care about Meta’s decision to essentially stop regulating its platforms in the US?

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is firing the professional third-party fact-checkers whose job it is to prevent disinformation on its platforms in the US. It will also reduce moderation on issues such as immigration and gender — the piñatas of online hate — despite the fact that posts related to immigration generated 300 per cent more hate speech on Facebook compared to other political topics, according to a Center for Countering Digital Hate’s 2021 report.

All this in the name of adapting to what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “a cultural turning point toward once again prioritizing free speech.”

And possibly, maybe, also in the name of currying favour with US president Donald Trump, the same man whose accounts Meta suspended in January 2021 following the attacks on the US Capitol, citing violations of its policies against incitement of violence. Meta is such a fan of Trump’s brand of free speech that it donated US$1 million to his presidential inaugural fund along with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

When asked by a reporter whether he thought Meta’s turnaround was due to his past threats, Donald Trump responded, “probably.” If this really is about free speech, the decision to embrace it was not made freely.

For those who believe Meta’s policy change is motivated by a desire to promote free speech, consider that as of June 2022, half of all white supremacist groups listed by Facebook as hate groups had a presence on the platform — was that not enough freedom of speech?

That’s not to say that the criticisms towards Meta’s censorship are unfounded. It’s hard to defend Meta’s content moderation and fact-checking, which were clearly ineffective and uneven in their application. Meta has admitted that 10 to 20 per cent of its content removal actions may be mistakes and has been rightly criticized for blocking content regardless of context, which can suppress legitimate expression.

Extremist groups have learned to camouflage their hate speech to evade censorship, while regular users have learned to camouflage keywords about issues that are heavily censored. Human Rights Watch published a report in December 2023 documenting Meta’s “systemic censorship” and suppression of protected speech, including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about Palestinian human rights going back to 2021.

Part of the problem is that it’s impossible to appeal these decisions or to find out why they were made. My non profit’s Facebook page was banned a few years ago when all it did was promote fundraising events for communities in need.

Clearly, Meta’s efforts to manage content haven’t been working.

But the solution is not to drop fact-checking and content moderation — on the contrary: social media is a superspreader of fake news.

Some 68 per cent of internet users across 16 countries view social media as the primary source of disinformation contributing to increased polarization, according to a 2023 Ipsos study. Almost 40 per cent of US news consumers report unknowingly sharing fake news or misinformation on social media.

Disinformation is now the most urgent threat out of a list of 35 “plausible” global disruptions “that could reshape Canada and the world in the near future,” according to a 2024 report by government-sanctioned think-tank Policy Horizons Canada. Fifteen hundred global leaders surveyed in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 share the same concerns about the disinformation flooding our “information ecosystem” within the next three years.

Within the next three years, algorithms designed to engage audiences emotionally rather than factually could “increase distrust and social fragmentation,” isolating people in “separate realities shaped by their personal media… Public decision making could be compromised as institutions struggle to effectively communicate key messaging on education, public health, research and government information,” the Policy Horizons Canada report says.

Does this sound familiar?

Disinformation is the new pandemic: like a virus it’s often undetectable, and like the COVID-19 virus, it creates fear and distrust of others — and of the institutions whose job it is to protect us, like the government.

And just as Facebook was named by 66 per cent of journalists as the leading source of COVID-19 disinformation, it is at the centre of what is being called the era of distrust. Distrust is now our default tendency: nearly six in 10 people surveyed across 28 countries say their default tendency is to distrust something until they see evidence it is trustworthy.

When distrust is the default, we lack the ability to debate or collaborate: see stats below.

And yet instead of investing in more sophisticated safeguards to stem the flow of disinformation, Meta proposes to drop these safeguards almost entirely (in the US for now) and adopt the Community Notes policy used by X, which relies on users to flag potentially misleading or false content.

How’s that working out?

Hate speech on X increased by 50 per cent between January 2022 and June 2023 (community notes was adopted in October 2022), including a 260 per cent increase in transphobic slurs, a 30 per cent increase in homophobic tweets and 42 per cent more racist tweets, according to a study by the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute.

The same study indicates that tweets containing hate speech received 70 per cent more likes per day than any other kind. In terms of efficacy, Community Notes typically become visible about 15 hours after a tweet is posted, and 86 per cent of posts flagged for containing hate speech were not removed, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

Here’s the thing: Several studies have found evidence that increases in online hate speech are associated with real-life violence. Meta is aware of this, so much so that when it announced its policy change, it also removed a sentence from its own website. The now-deleted sentence said that hate speech “creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.”

This is free hate, not free speech.

Here in Canada, Meta has shown the impact it can have on citizens’ trust. In August 2023, Meta blocked Canadians’ access to news on its platforms to push back at the Online News Act (Bill C-18), which aimed to force it to pay news providers for their content. Only three months later, 26 per cent of Gen Z respondents reported having less trust in the news as a result — and when citizens lose trust in the news, they also lose trust in the institutions that communicate with them through the news, like the government.

Facebook stands above all other social media platforms as a superspreader of fake news: its algorithm design is more likely to promote disinformation compared to other platforms. Facebook’s algorithms reward any content that keeps users engaged by promoting it to other users, in the hopes that it will also keep them engaged, regardless of ethics, veracity or source. And if there is one thing disinformation does well, it is keeping us engaged — whether it makes us feel outraged, comforted, or appalled, it attracts our attention by appealing to our emotions. And when we share it, we unknowingly spread it, too — which is called misinformation.

How did we get here?

This is why the platform has been at the centre of so many scandals, from spreading dangerous claims that Haitian immigrants eat pets — claims that led to bomb threats — and harassment, to openly promoting propaganda for the Myanmar military that contributed to the genocide of the Rohingya people.

By treating Meta like a tech business and allowing it to regulate itself — which it does not have to do in the US, thanks to Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act which protects Meta and other interactive computer service providers from liability for content posted by third parties. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them — without it, the Internet as we know it would not exist.

Section 230 also allows internet platforms to “restrict access” to any content they deem objectionable. In other words, the platforms get to choose what is and what is not acceptable content, and they can decide to host it or moderate it accordingly.

This law is both the backbone and the Achilles heel of the online world as we know it. But it doesn’t have to be this way — while Section 230 provides broad immunity from civil liability, the European Union’s approach focuses more on holding platforms accountable for enforcing their own rules and removing illegal content.

Why is this not universal?

And why aren’t we addressing the algorithm that makes such laws indispensable? Our governments, so vocal about the dangers of disinformation, continue to allow Meta to keep its algorithm hidden, despite its role in shaping what we see — and what we don’t. Our ideas and beliefs are just as influenced by what we don’t get to read or see as they are by what we do.

So what can we do?

Asking for transparency in social media algorithms is like having a say in what you eat every day. Just as our food diet affects our bodies, our information diet affects our minds, our beliefs, and ultimately, the decisions we make.

“Platforms must disclose the principles that guide their algorithms. This includes the types of data they use, the decision-making process, and the personalization goals. Transparent practices enable users to make informed choices about their digital interactions, and they hold platforms accountable for ethical algorithms.” — How Social Media Algorithms Reshape Digital Landscapes

We can demand that our governments stop treating Meta as simply a tech business. With 3.065 billion active users, its every decision affects every country on the planet.

Meta is a mercenary that will work for the highest bidder to conduct what the military calls psy ops — strategic campaigns designed to manipulate beliefs, emotions, and behaviours to achieve political or military goals — whether in peace or conflict. Every military in the world incorporates psychological operations into its military strategies.

Fake news is a weapon and we are its army.

Meta’s changes will not encourage more free speech. On the contrary, fewer safeguards mean that we will be less protected from and more exposed to the influence of anyone who wants to pay for content that tells us what to think, how to vote, who to fear and what to believe.

Just this summer, US Attorney General Merrick Garland accused Russia of orchestrating a US$10 million social media campaign involving well-known conservative influencers to sway public opinion in its favour ahead of the upcoming presidential election. This is neither the first nor the last time: Russia also interfered in the 2016 US presidential elections via disinformation campaigns on social media to influence the democratic process.

Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms have and still can connect, inform and empower us. Facebook played a crucial role in various social movements: Black Lives Matter, the Arab Spring, the #metoo movement, the protests in Iran, Occupy Wallstreet, and more.

But social media is a double-edged sword, and unlike the person who holds the sword, Meta’s algorithms have no ethics, as evidenced by Facebook’s pivotal role in the genocide of the Rohingya people. A report by Amnesty International details how Facebook’s algorithmic systems were supercharging the spread of harmful anti-Rohingya content in Myanmar, but the company still failed to act: “while the Myanmar military was committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, Meta was profiting from the echo chamber of hatred created by its hate-spiralling algorithms.”

Despite everything we know, there are over 3 billion Facebook users and almost 2 billion Instagram users who have almost no way of holding these platforms accountable. While we wring our hands about fact-checkers and content moderation, our beliefs, our ideas, our minds and ultimately our behaviours are affected by algorithms we can’t see. If Facebook’s algorithm were a person, it would be imprisoned many times over for fomenting violence, racism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny, to name a few.

As Nobel laureate Maria Ressa warns, “We are ushering in a world without facts.” Removing the safeguards for users while maintaining the algorithm that makes them indispensable is like being trapped in a self-driving car with no brakes.

Let’s just hope that we don’t end up like that Tesla that drove itself off a cliff.

Originally published at https://therover.ca on February 4, 2025.

I told the story of what can only be described as my brief ‘Karen’ phase — though thankfully that word didn’t exist then. This was a few years before the Black Lives Matter movement became more widespread, around 2016.

First, I didn’t understand why it was called Black Lives Matter rather than All Lives Matter.

Yep.

At the time, I was the director of WeDoSomething, the non-profit I founded in 2015. I worked with Indigenous communities, asylum seekers, refugees, and other marginalized groups to counter stereotypes and promote inclusion and belonging: I thought I knew what the world needed.

I felt that by designating Black lives only, the movement reinforced our separateness and excluded White allies who cared and who could amplify the BLM movement. Logical, right?

Absolutely, when viewed through the lens of a White woman who is accustomed to being valued and included in most spaces. Not so much when viewed through the lens of Black person who is systemically targeted for discrimination and racism, and not treated as though they matter — unless it’s to entertain us with musical or sports skills. Black lives are rarely, if ever, allowed to dominate the public space.

At the time I felt uncomfortable, righteous and a little offended. I was experiencing what is now known as “White fragility”, described below:

So I asked my (non-Black) gay friend who knew I wasn’t a complete twit to explain why the movement was called Black Lives Matter rather than All Lives Matter, which he did without mocking my ignorance*.

*For those of you who still ask yourselves this question, BLM is the equivalent of shining a spotlight on something that has never been true in the history of the United States (and we are not that much better in Canada): Black lives have not been treated as though they matter. Black Lives Matter is a wish, a prayer, a reminder, and a demand.

It’s not that I’ve never felt excluded or experienced the (very strange) feeling of been the only White person in a crowd (in India and in Trenton, New Jersey), but I treated these experiences as exceptions. I assumed that I should have access, that I belonged anywhere and everywhere.

This was the beginning of me understanding what privilege means. The scholar and anti-racism activist Peggy Macintosh uses the ‘invisible knapsack’ to illustrate the concept of privilege:

I have come to see White privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. — Peggy McIntosh, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Another way of looking at privilege is to think of it as what we don’t have to deal with: privilege is the absence of bias and barriers to access that are imposed upon a given group and which they do not have the power to change — and which are often invisible to those outside their group.

Now back to my story.

At around the same time, I came upon a post on Facebook in which a Black person was complaining that White people kept showing up at Black Lives Matter protests. The post had received hundreds of Likes and dozens of supportive comments. I don’t see what the problem is, I thought to myself. This means the movement is catching on! And isn’t not wanting White people at your protest kinda racist?

I generously shared my concerns in the comments and urged them to include their White allies rather than complain about them. I even added a James Baldwin quote to make sure that these clearly confused Black people would see things my way (it pains me to admit this).

It did not go well.

Here I was, an (obviously) enlightened White person trying to help, only to be told that my intervention was ignorant and unhelpful. Shocking.

I remained in my righteous bubble until I read some of the other comments on that post. Someone wrote: Why do these White people stand at the front of our protest with their signs? This is our movement. Don’t they even have the grace to support us from the back?

That hit me.

I asked myself, would I do that? And the very uncomfortable answer was, very possibly yes. Enter a wave of discomfort swirling in my gut that got me thinking about the space I took up in the world. I realized that I was only comfortable in certain roles (like leading, directing, organizing) and not others (like following, supporting, not knowing what’s coming next, feeling out of the loop). It occurred to me that my reactions to this movement might have as much to do with my need to be included and to be a ‘doer’ as with fighting injustice and racism. And that I was, possibly, what is known as a “White saviour”.

‘The White savior complex, also known as White saviorism, is an ideology that a White person acts upon from a position of superiority to rescue a BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, or person of color — community or person.’ — What is White Savior Complex?

I began to understand that, ironically, my privilege was a disadvantage because it made me blind and deaf to the norms, cues, needs and traditions of the community in question. I was now sitting at the back of the class, trying to figure out where I went wrong.

So I started looking into how people learn. The Hierarchy of competence illustrates it perfectly: I had started at the bottom in Unconscious Incompetence — I was ignorant of my ignorance. These experiences increased my awareness and moved me up into the next stage: I was now uncomfortably conscious of my incompetence/ignorance.

Luckily the Fuckup Nights crowd laughed at all the right moments, and didn’t boo me out of the room.

So here are 5 lessons I learned during my (have I mentioned brief?) pre-Karen ‘Karen’ phase. These lessons helped me conceive Versus, which equips people to do what I had to do: critically examine their own thinking, challenge their worldview through dialogue, and be open to learning. If I’m lucky, this won’t be the last time I discover my blind spots and ignorance. I will never again assume that I know how to “help” someone.

1: There’s a difference between helping and supporting:

Sometimes helping someone can take away their autonomy and smother their right to express themselves their way. Supporting is witnessing, and asking, what can I do? I see now that expecting to be included and/or placing oneself at the forefront of someone else’s movement represents another form of domination, and was in this case, an extension of White supremacy* (not the right-wing kind), even if it was well intentioned.

To recognize our own blind spots, we need dialogue skills so that we feel equipped to talk to — and listen to — people who see things differently from us . This is how we challenge our own ideas and fight algorithms that feed us perspectives we already agree with.

*Ask yourself: who/what do I care about deeply and how am I showing my care: am I trying to rescue them or am I open to learning from them and supporting their choice?

2: Explore the roots of your need to help/support:

It’s not for nothing that my non-profit is called WeDoSomething: I cope with grief or injustice by taking action. In my personal life, I’ve often felt the need to solve problems for others, in part to make myself feel less anxious about their suffering. This can be both useful and unhealthy: it’s worth recognizing the roots of our need to help others. Understanding this about myself gave me compassion for my own grief about situations I’ve lived in which I was afraid, and had no power.

To explore our own motivations, we need critical thinking skills + emotional intelligence, i.e., self-awareness and the ability to question our own beliefs and behaviours.

*Ask yourself: how do I affect the people around me? And how am I reacting to the people/situations around me? Where do my strongest reactions come from?

3: Don’t let discomfort become defensiveness.

We all mess up. We all say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing and we pay the price by feeling shame or deep discomfort: our biology primes us to react defensively, it’s a natural response. When this happens, be kind to yourself, so you can react differently. And consider that sometimes the way people react to us has nothing to do with who we are as individuals, and everything to do with the pain of the community they identify with.

In times of conflict, the way we engage with each other is often guided by the mega-identities we represent, rather than the individuals we are (Israeli-Palestinian; Black-White; Men-Women-Non-Binary, etc). Practice being uncomfortable without becoming angry or defensive: it is the most loving form of activism there is, both for yourself and for others.

“If emotions were a car, taking you on a journey through your life, emotion regulation would be like being in the driver seat of emotions, rather than in the passenger seat. You are more in control of the twists and turns of the journey. You decide which path to take in each situation, rather than sit by and be a passive observer of the journey!” — The Emotional Body

How do we practice this? It takes emotional self-regulation, one of the hardest and most important skills for navigating both our online and our real lives without being in a constant state of reactivity. This skill is also key to being a good digital citizen online: it allows us to engage with each other respectfully on social media, rather than reacting aggressively to posts and viewpoints we disagree with.

*Ask yourself: How often do I notice an emotion I’m having and decide not to let it guide my actions? How do my emotions show up when I go online?

4. Avoid name-calling:

If someone had called me a Karen or a White saviour while I was in my ignorance, my shame might have become defensiveness rather than curiosity. No matter how well terms like “Woke”, “toxic masculinity”, “Karen” or any other label describes someone, using these will not make them open to listening or learning, and instead risks pushing them further to the side you’re hoping to change.

To prevent ourselves from falling into this trap, we need social awareness skills (another form of emotional intelligence), which means trying to understand the other (no, this is not the same as agreeing with them) rather than attacking them.

*Ask yourself: how do my individual actions affect our collective togetherness, our society? Do I want a more divided society that points the finger at ‘others’, or one that values respect for differences? How can I adapt the way I communicate under pressure to reflect my wish for a more just and inclusive society?

5. Be someone’s Dumb Question Answerer:

At some point, someone will ask you a question that is, to you, incredibly ignorant. You can either use one of the disparaging terms above and enjoy a surge of righteousness, or you can fan their curiosity, and be a bridge person. If you come from the community the person is ignorant about and don’t want to educate them (fair enough), then tell them that you’re not the right person to ask and that this subject is way too close to home for you. Maybe even thank them for being curious.

NB: try not to ask someone from the community you don’t understand to explain themselves to you. Ask a wise friend, watch a documentary, Google it first.

To offer this to others we need to feel safe, and to believe that if we treat “others” better, we will be treated better too. Only then can we practice more emotional intelligence in the form of relationship management: “the ability to communicate clearly, connect with those from other cultures, and manage conflict.”

*Ask yourself: have I ever been unaware or ignorant? What happened for me to become aware and informed? How can I respect my own boundaries while not disrespecting people I find ignorant?

These lessons — along with running WeDoSomething for five years, organizing 18 fun-raiser that raised money and awareness for communities in need — form the foundation of my work today, Versus. While WeDoSomething organized events that acted as a bridge between communities that would otherwise never meet, Versus equips people to become bridges, capable of turning towards each other despite their differences, with respect and care.

Versus teaches individuals, workplaces, schools, and institutions how to address divisive issues and build common ground, using inclusive communication. We teach essential ‘soft skills’ that AI will never master: critical thinking, emotional intelligence, civil dialogue, media literacy and digital citizenship. Each of these shapes our worldview and influences the way we interact with each other.

And each of these is essential for the workplace, for collaborative leadership, resilient cultures, inclusive innovation — and for a healthy democracy.

How else can we address the challenges and opportunities of our post-pandemic, multigenerational, multicultural world — if not together?

If you’re interested in finding out more about our program, email us at hello@wedosomething.org and sign up for our newsletter for announcements about upcoming events.

SOURCES:

What is White Savior Complex?

On Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

How to disagree, together.

13 tips to navigate — and improve — our polarized world.

A few days ago, I watched a video shot by a Montrealer of Asian descent in which a man verbally abused her in the metro. At one point, he made his hand into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot her in the head, shouting, “Fck Chinese democracy, Fck Japan!” (en français) while repeatedly trying to slap the phone out of her hand.

Nobody helped her.

It’s three days later, and I am still triggered — angry — at every.single.person who watched and did nothing. Don’t tell me that they didn’t intervene because he appeared to be mentally unstable. It is because he was likely unstable that someone should have stood next to her and asked, are you alright? Do you need help?

So I searched for How to Help a Stranger in Danger, and there is surprisingly little information online about how to intervene when a stranger is being harassed, but the one thing they say is this: do.not.do.nothing.

Many of you might be thinking: maybe they were afraid, maybe they have their own worries and couldn’t face helping her. If the situation had escalated, that girl’s injuries would be part of our morning newsfeed, amplifying our shared sense of hopelessness, filling our social media with yet another hashtag. My point is that it catches up to us when we abandon each other, because we are each other’s worries. It is the lives of our neighbours that feed the news cycle.

According to Statistics Canada, hate crimes against Asian Canadians in Canada’s major cities have increased by 600–700% since March 2019.

Yesterday, with this incident in mind, I walked past a couple with a puppy at their feet. A man got out of his car, from which we could hear a dog barking furiously, ‘Man, I’d like to trade dogs with you’ he said to the couple with the puppy, ‘I guess this one was Made In China!’ and he laughed. I turned around and despite my daughter trying to drag me away, I heard myself saying, ‘That’s actually not funny. There’s a lot of hate aimed at Asians right now, and jokes like that really don’t help’, and kept walking.

It was just a joke. Why get involved, it was harmless. Right? Wrong.

Studies on genocide and racial violence show that hate takes its root — like a nasty weed — in the cracks of our communities: it begins as subtle bias, cultural jokes, racial stereotypes. So what once was a rude but somehow-socially-acceptable joke about consumer goods from China is now a spark contributing to a growing racism against Asian Canadians.

Take a look at the Pyramid of Hate below — ask yourself whether any of your behaviours appear on it — because one thing normalizes the next thing, as we move from hilarious Made in China jokes to less hilarious FB groups in which I see people of Asian descent asking to be accompanied on the subway, for fear of being attacked.

Maybe I sound preachy, but it’s up to all of us — especially those of us who are the most privileged and the least targeted — to question these once socially acceptable biases with our kids and friends. It’s safe to assume that we will each face a conflictual situation one day, either as the victim or as the bystander.

Let’s teach our children how to intervene lovingly in each other’s lives in moments of danger and fear. More importantly, let’s teach them to accept and learn from each other’s differences, so that they don’t become each other’s sources of danger and fear. Pluralism is the goal: the welcoming and acceptance of our differences, while contributing to a shared vision of a loving society.

Normally I dislike #calloutculture because it’s used as a kind of social media pepper spray to spit our anguish into the public space in the form of righteous anger. A callout is a scalpel — to be used selectively and with a precise objective, or to expose a rot. But I am (lovingly) calling out each and every one of us: if you stand by and watch another person being harmed and do absolutely nothing to help, you bear a responsibility for the harm that befalls them.

You may justify turning away from injustice that day with the usual excuses: “I was late for a meeting and couldn’t stop to help’’, or ‘’I’m sure someone else will help’’. But think back on your life: these moments are what your most traumatic memories are made of. We never forget the shame of letting a fellow human being suffer in front of us. And we never forget the feeling of being shamed or abused publicly, either.

One day you or I will be the one in need, and we do not want an audience for our suffering, we want to be surrounded by benevolent citizens, ready to give what they would want in the same situation: help.

Here are some tools:

How to be a Loving Citizen and a Brave Bystander: the 5D’s.

1. Distraction: derail the incident by distracting from it. Focus is on the person being harassed, not the harasser. Recommendations include asking for directions or the time, or pretending to know the person being harassed.
2. Delegation: ask for help from a third party.
3. Documentation: first, assess if anyone else is helping the person. If not, use one of the other D’s. If not, document, but NEVER post without asking the person affected for permission.
4. Direct: you may choose to directly name what is happening to the aggressor. Assess your safety before taking this step, as the aggressor may shift their abuse towards you. Keep it short, do not engage in debate or dialogue.
5. Delay: if you can’t act in the moment, help the person afterwards. Offer to accompany them to their destination, to share your documentation, ask if they’re ok.

All these tips and more from ihollaback.org and available here.

Isn’t it ironic that although COVID-19 closed schools, universities and businesses for months, we’ve never learned so much about the way the world works?

The virus upended our existence and has taken almost a million lives. It fed off our togetherness, and in doing so it took away the greatest and most unequal privilege of all: ignorance, the decadent carelessness behind the words ‘I didn’t know’. Now we know that there is no greater luxury than to move through the world, oblivious to our impact on one another. Sharing breath and space was a gift — one we will not take for granted again for years.

When COVID-19 first hit, many saw it as a kind of cosmic spanking from Mother Nature to us Earth-bound twits, driving our Escalades three blocks to pick up our no-foam, half-sweet almond milk Starbucks lattes in our not-really-recyclable, single-use cups. But if there is any meaning to be found, it is in what this virus has shown us about how we live, who we value, and who we don’t.

COVID-19 ripped our mass-produced, rose-coloured glasses right off our faces.

We who are privileged have lost much less than most — in fact, it’s what we received that matters: a taste of what it is to live afraid, to have our movements restricted, to worry about running out of essential items, to anguish over our loved ones, to feel powerless. By taking away our regularly scheduled existence, the pandemic gave us a peek at the daily reality of millions of citizens of this planet, and a dose of vulnerability like none we’ve experienced on such a scale since World War II.

This is the definition of a collective trauma.

How we deal with this trauma — as individuals, as communities, as nations — will dictate whether we become a more divided world or a more united one, a more sustainable planet, or a self-destructive one. This immense social, political and economic vulnerability can become either the glue that binds us together more tightly, or the knife that divides us more deeply.

‘’Collective trauma is extraordinary in that not only can it bring distress and negative consequences to individuals but in that it can also change the entire fabric of a community. In fact, collective trauma can impact relationships, alter policies and governmental processes, alter the way the society functions, and even change its social norms. For example, after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the United States altered their transportation and travel policies and procedures to enhance security. Although this traumatic incident occurred 19 years ago, the societal changes in travel policy can still be seen today.’’ — Psychology Today

Finally, we are no longer too busy to pay attention to the profound inequality our systems are built and depend upon. We are no longer too distracted to acknowledge the systemic racism and normalized violence aimed at BIPOC (Black and indigenous people of colour) around the world. To face the fact that we store our elderly away like useless relics in places we’d never want to end up in ourselves. To realize that our access to fresh food depends on migrant workers who (still) have no rights. To grieve asylum seekers like Marcelin François, who risked everything to build a better life in Canada, only to lose his life, still a refugee.

The people we depended on most (after doctors and nurses) during this pandemic were those we have been taught to value the least: waste removal workers, supermarket clerks, janitors, housekeeping staff, security guards, long-distance truck drivers, farmworkers. They were the difference between seeing our cities descend into chaos or remaining functional. Between clean streets or streets full of garbage. Between access to fresh food or frozen. Between empty store shelves and full ones.

The pandemic focused our attention on our most powerless citizens — because they received the least protection. The price they paid so that the rest of us would finally notice their plight is a reflection of everything that is wrong with our society — but also a guide to what needs to be fixed in order to make this collective trauma worth it.

Like some global Masters degree in Wake Up 101, COVID–19 has shown us what we need to know in order to do better:

Quarantine may have left us feeling powerless, but it also showed us just how powerful our individual actions can be: suddenly we saw the impact of our everyday decisions. Where we bought our food, our books, our masks was a vote for that business to survive; who you voted for or didn’t bother voting for in the last election was now in charge of deciding whether or not to let your kids go to school, and whether to release government funds to keep your business afloat.

We can no longer ignore the fact that everything we do, from who we vote for — or don’t bother voting for — to what and where we buy the things we need, helped put the systems that govern us into place. The ‘system’ is us.

The economy is no longer a theoretical concept described in intangible figures: we are the statistics, we are the almost four million Canadians who lost their jobs, contracts, and opportunities. Ours are the rents that cannot be paid, the mortgages that cannot be covered, the businesses that are barely surviving, and the businesses that didn’t survive at all. What was once a macro concept is now micro: it’s the econo-me.

The same is true for government: no longer just a word to describe a bunch of talking heads that we vote for every few years, it is a Prime Minister who put emergency funding into place in order to save businesses and individuals even as we watched the U.S. President deny that there was a pandemic at all. It is Quebec’s provincial premier, François Legault, who led us through the pandemic only to then deny what it revealed: Canada’s systemic racism towards Black and indigenous peoples.

The people we elect are a distillation of our fears, aspirations and beliefs — at the very least, they represent what we’re willing to accept. And the economic, healthcare and political systems they run are the embodiment of our daily, individual actions and decisions, amplified. This can be a cause for despair, or a reason to hope.

The best way to grieve the incredible loss of human life that resulted and continues to result from COVID-19 is by fixing the systems that left so many people unprotected. To use what the virus showed us about our environment, our political and economic systems, about our institutions, and about our personal impact to transform their deaths into the birth of a new world. We have the opportunity to participate in a ‘moral revolution’, and to build a new kind of citizenship — one that is founded on what COVID-19 has taught us: we are interconnected.

‘We’re in this moment where we know our old and current institutions have run their course. But we have not reimagined what they need to become. And so, because there is no roadmap, we can only hold onto a moral compass. And that, for me, is the beginning of the moral revolution…it’s a reframe of the system, because we have had a system that has put profit at the center. And what we need to do is shift that to put humanity and the Earth at the center…’

J. Novogratz, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution

We may not achieve the kind of change we want in the next six months or in the next six years, but like an underground tremor that triggers a tsunami, let’s not forget that:

1. No system is immovable. Even the heaviest, most bureaucratic institutions adapted quickly to the COVID crisis — entire hospitals were transformed into ICUs and back, school systems went online, as have even the most traditional businesses. Gas prices dropped twice as low as they did after the 2008 economic crisis, and according to the International Energy Agency, “the Covid-19 crisis will have a lasting impact on future (gas) market developments...” Systemic change is possible, and it has happened before.
2. To vote is to design the ‘system’: now that we’ve felt the power that our elected officials have to make our lives better or worse, we know what kind of leaders we want. And perhaps President Trump’s legacy will be the opposite of what we see now — that he damaged the institutions of democracy and spread hate — but that he also motivated the most Black, brown, Asian and trans Americans to own the system: to vote, to run for office, to get elected, so that they are never again victims. We must never skip a vote again.
3. Protesting, civil unrest and social media efforts work: Online and in real life, the #blacklivesmatter protests brought down long-revered statues, put forward at least one bill to increase police accountability into the U.S. Congress, forced many brands to address their lack of diversity, shifted public opinion, and forced a global conversation about racism on a scale we haven’t seen since the 1960s.

‘‘The sleeping giant is one name for the public; when it wakes up, when we wake up, we are no longer only the public: we are civil society, the superpower whose nonviolent means are sometimes, for a shining moment, more powerful than violence, more powerful than regimes and armies. We write history with our feet and with our presence and with our collective voice and vision.’’

— Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit

4. Expand your criteria for success: We witnessed firsthand the ways in which the personal beliefs and biases of the individuals we hire/elect are directly related to the policies and laws they create to govern us, for better or for worse. The next time you are in a position to hire or elect someone, evaluate their personal values and biases as stringently as you do their professional experience. Empathy, humility and open-mindedness must become essential professional qualifications for your V.P. of finance, and not just for your therapist.

5. Buy like you’re voting: One single day during the pandemic, yielded US$13 billion for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. During the pandemic his wealth grew by US$74 billion to US $189 billion, which means he is personally worth more than Exxon Mobil, Nike or McDonald’s — regardless of how badly he treated his employees. His fortune replaces the thousands (millions?) of small businesses that once existed and could exist again if we were willing to pay a few more dollars and wait a few more days for that book or that dumbbell set. Consider the impact of each purchase we make beyond ourselves, because where and what we buy is what we condone.

6. Consume like you matter: This year, thanks to lockdowns, Earth Overshoot day came a month late (August 22), showing us that change is possible. But this change will not be sustainable if we don’t radically rethink and reimagine how we use Earth’s resources. So instead of waiting for our government to legislate better, commit to changing daily habits, like never buying another takeaway coffee again (most takeaway cups are lined with polyethylene and thus cannot be recycled — yes, we mean you Starbucks Coffee). Small gesture = huge impact.

7. Forget ally-ship. In order to support Black Lives Matter and be anti-racist, we who are White must develop a profound self-awareness about privileges we assumed were simply normal life — a kind of moral mindfulness. Refuse the guilt that comes with it— it will suck away the energy we need to engage in the long-term work it will take to eradicate the systemic racism that has benefitted us. Instead, we must develop a kind of love and care for every Black, indigenous, LGBTQ+ stranger we may never meet. This is crucial to sharing our privilege until we shed our privilege. We’ll know we’re succeeding when it stops feeling like a duty and instead feels like a necessity, an act of love and survival for us all.

8. Be wary of identity. Identity is a double edged sword: it can protect you and support your growth; it can also disconnect you from those who don’t share it, and at worst, dehumanize them. We must remember that we each have many identities: womxn, dancer, activist, parent, chef, writer. The more identities we recognize in ourselves, the more people we feel connected to. When we move only one of our identities to the top of the hierarchy, we are less motivated to find commonalities with those who don’t share that identity — and we need to hear each other if we are to solve the problems ahead.

9. Pop your filter bubble: every time we use our digital devices, thousands of algorithms jump into action to hide results that don’t match our existing data — our online identity. We may think we’re being selective about what we watch and read, but we’re often fed our already-existing beliefs, like factory-farmed animals. What we believe becomes a self-fulfilling search result, which contributes to an increasingly narrow worldview. Look up the social media accounts of communities you feel ignorant about, use hashtags to explore different perspectives on issues that matter to you. Follow left-wing activists and right-wing conservatives, and read the references they share. We must consume different ideas if we want different solutions to the same old problems.

10. Be a ‘bridge person’, when you can: I once asked an indigenous activist how non-indigenous people can support National Indigenous day, and she said: let us enjoy our day without having to explain ourselves and our traditions to you (here). She made me aware of the burden we place on those we want to support when we turn them into human libraries, and I appreciated her clear boundaries. But it is thanks to three other indigenous women that I learned about the cultural genocide here in Canada. The time and energy these women invested in me acted as a bridge connecting their world and mine, and forged a bond between us that has made me a lifelong supporter of indigenous communities. Now I share the knowledge they offered me with my community. Although it is not our duty to educate others, doing so can create the kind of devotion that no book or podcast ever will: each one of us has the power to be a bridge between communities.

Let’s do this.

‘Suppose you had the revolution you are talking and dreaming about. Suppose your side had won, and you had the kind of society that you wanted. How would you live, you personally, in that society? Start living that way now!’ — Paul Goodman

No one knows exactly how this crisis will impact our world, but one thing is certain: we are experiencing a collective trauma. From East to West, black to white, Jews to Muslims, hot climates to cold, there are few human beings whose lives will not be forever divided into BV (Before Virus) and AV (After Virus).

‘With pandemics fitting the criterion for what may lead to collective trauma, it is a reminder that mental health difficulties may be widespread in response to the COVID-19 pandemic…stress, distress, traumatic stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, panic, and grief.’

— Psychology Today

What do we do about this, when there is so little that we can do?

Our usual distractions and/or addictions are either gone or less accessible: we can’t shop, have the affair, do the triathlon, afford the drugs, or drink in hiding. According to a recent TED interview with the author Elizabeth Gilbert, that might be a good thing because, she says, ‘the only way to survive this, is to feel it’.

From this perspective, we newly unemployed are weirdly lucky. Yes, we are stressed, but we abound in the luxury that is time, so we can take the advice of experts in order to process our trauma. So while time may feel like the enemy, it’s also the remedy: we have so much of it that we can call our friends and family, weep in the bath, bake bread, and even recreate art.

These gestures arm us with daily doses of resilience.

So what about the ‘lucky’ ones, the ones at the top of the #quarantineenvy pile who still have jobs? The people who ‘have it all’, who have families and remain productive and financially secure?

The ones I know cannot afford to join this collective slowdown. Many people who still have jobs not only feel a duty to work even harder than before, but also don’t want to complain about their stress because they’re surrounded by people who lost their jobs or their businesses.

As the weeks turn to months, many of them will not have had the luxury of following expert advice about sleeping well, meditating, or taking long walks to relieve stress. Employees who are in a relationship — especially those who are parents to young children — are juggling all their roles at once, or living with the guilt of knowing that they are not contributing to the daily chores and that their partner feels more alone than ever.

‘’The situation feels impossible for two-parent homes where both partners can work from home — and gets exponentially harder for single parents, kids with special needs, families experiencing homelessness, and parents who have to work outside of the home.’’ — Vox

It doesn’t take a psychologist to see that the people who kept the world running while the rest of us learned to crochet may be mentally and physically fragile once things return to normal. Unless companies make taking care of their people an equal priority to staying productive, they risk making it out of this crisis only to depend on a traumatized workforce which upon return to ‘normal’ life, will drop in productivity as the full force of their grief, exhaustion and trauma hits.

Because the only thing that will have changed for these employees we envy so much is that instead of working at the dining room table, they’ll be back in their cubicles and offices, with no break other than the mental one they’ll be at risk for.

Remember that right now, employees are not working from home (which is a choice and a perk) — they’re working at home out of necessity, as dictated by circumstances beyond their control. So give them back some control over their lives by crafting and adjusting expectations, together. Why? Because sometimes the only way to get more out of people is to ask less of them.

Some companies already get it: they’ll go beyond just ‘making it work’ and see this is an opportunity to build something strong out of a crisis that has weakened us all. They’ll recognize that this tech-dependent moment is a singular opportunity to deepen their company’s humanity, rather than lessen it. They’ll use this moment of widespread vulnerability to craft a more connected community out of the employees they have left. Because it’s still possible to do good while doing business.

But if like many companies, yours doesn’t know how to begin to do this — if you’re noticing that your people are flagging, if you’re worried about the ones who live alone, start with this: take the time to understand not just how your employees’ private life impacts their work, but also how their work life impacts their private life.

They’ll be grateful not just that they still have a job, but that yours is the company they work for. And yes, that translates to better employee engagement, productivity, and what we all need most: resilience.

1. More people in more countries can actually see the sky.
2. We value what was once mundane: grabbing a coffee with a friend, going to the supermarket, wandering a bookstore, receiving a hug — these memories are now our goals.
3. We are no longer afraid of picking up the phone and calling one another: gone are the days of sending a text to plan a call, only to avoid the call.
4. People are making time to talk just for the sake of connecting — not to get the contract, or solve the problem, but to explore each other’s minds. Connection is the goal.
5. No person, government or political party can ever again argue that offering healthcare for everyone is a waste of resources. Or that being a garbage man or a bus driver is a waste of time. We now see and have a renewed respect for the many professions that keep our cities running, whether they require a college degree or not.
6. Our conversations are more intimate: are you ok? is the new ‘how are ya?’, ‘stay safe’ is the new ‘talk later”, and I miss you is no longer a strange thing to say, even to your accountant.
7. Patience: we’re teaching our elders how to use technology to stay connected. Whether the conversation is good or not, we need to see one another.
8. Online dating is now 80% conversation, 20% looks — and not the other way around #writemeapoem
9. We waste less: when going to the supermarket involves plastic gloves, holding your breath as you cross strangers in the cereal aisle, disinfecting your groceries with bleach spray, changing your clothes and bathing in Purell, well, you’re more careful about what you consume and why.
10. Taking a walk has never been so precious.
11. Even though we show our love for each other by not being together, we have never been more aware of our love for one another.

My therapist (yep) once told me that in the Jewish tradition, when a man and woman marry, they begin their vows by saying, “I am my own beloved…”, before taking vows to love the other. Then he looked at me expectantly.

I paused mid-sob. I didn’t understand why he was wasting part of my $100 session to spout Oprah-isms I can find on Pinterest. I go to yoga, I get massages, I eat well. I am definitely my own beloved. I’M IN THERAPY, aren’t I?

What does being your own beloved even mean? And how does one attain this level of enlightenment, of self-yay? Those six words were like doors closed in my face, impenetrable. But things were getting harder and harder in my relationship, and I knew that some of that was my responsibility, so I was determined to figure it out.

What it means is this (more on how to do it, later) : if we come into a relationship loving our selves, then those selves can love others — because they’ve got enough love of their own. Being your own beloved is like feeding your soul enough Nutella that it doesn’t feel the need to suck Cheez Whiz from a can.

It means you do not need that other person (emotionally), you choose him/her, and you can survive it if they do not choose you back (you have fed your soul Nutella, remember). It means you do not hold onto people, you let them come to you, or not. And if things don’t work out between you — you still suffer — but not to the core, because that core is safe. Being your own beloved ensures you do not become the Kathy Bates (circa Misery) of love.

I began to understand what it means to be my own beloved. So I peacefully ended a long-term relationship that was full of love but not very loving. Wonderful as he was, I walked away feeling like I had proposed to myself (and I adopted a massive dog).

So this is what I know so far about how you become your own beloved, courtesy of many expensive therapy sessions, and months of wondering why my back hurt so much:

Know your weaknesses: Look at them closely, name them, face them. Get to know them the way a forensic detective gets to know a crime scene, the way you get to know a beloved’s body. Maybe you freak like a mad banshee when you feel vulnerable, maybe you hide your own feelings to please others until you want to smother them with a pillow, maybe you lust after other people’s people, whatever. Welcome your weaknesses like senile relatives who say deeply inappropriate things in public and offend everyone, always. Accept that they exist, the way your scars, or your hairy back, or your cellulite exists. Guilt-free.

Notice when they show up: Now that you know your weaknesses so well, you can see them coming. Maybe next time you’ll be able to turn the lights off in the house and pretend you’re not home before they even ring the doorbell, maybe not. But notice. For now, noticing is enough. And again, f*ck guilt. It is the Trump of the soul — destructive and it leads nowhere good.

Say no, regularly. I had no idea that the word “no” can be code for “I love moi!!!”. It is. If something makes you uncomfortable, do not do it, say it, snort it, kiss it or wear it. And if the only reason you might do it anyway is to please someone you care about, definitely say no. Their disappointment will pale in comparison to the joy that setting boundaries will offer your tired heart.

I have ignored so many No’s, ignored so many instincts — and by putting myself in situations that hurt me, I in turn lashed out at the person I did it for in the first place. It sucketh, and would be nice to avoideth. In the words of Charles Bukowski: “you’re going to have to save yourself.”