Would Plato tweet? The Ancient Greek guide to social media – BBC News

But if you adopt the view that almost everyone is wrong, and most influencers are to be mistrusted, how are we to arrive at what's right? And if, on the other hand, one's content is sincerely focused on the pursuit and expression of the objective truth, one must further ask, how do we obtain it? And is there such a truth?

Questions such as these permeated Plato's cultural scene. The sophist Protagoras was said to have espoused a theory of "relativism", which essentially suggested that since our individual perceptions differ, we are each limited to our own subjective construction of reality.

One can see how this thesis is exemplified by aspects of the social media experience, as we scroll through an apparent infinity of information, yet always within the confines of our private information bubbles.

Plato sought to refute Protagorean relativism, and to find a criterion for objective truth. When he wrote his "Republic", he envisioned an ideal society, ordered under the guidance of the one kind of person who's able to glean that pristine truth from the welter of public opinion the philosopher.

To combat the problem of distinguishing desirable from undesirable information good from bad influencers Plato introduced an infamous degree of censorship into his theoretical city. Jenny Jenkins at Swansea University has speculated as to whether he would have allowed citizens to use Facebook, surmising that this would have been a resounding "no"."Facebook does not have the intention of promoting morality, and does not particularly seek to educate its users," she writes, "so I think Plato would have disapproved of it for this reason alone."

Rather, Plato proposed that education and entertainment, and discourse in general, ought to be strictly regulated, with virtually all independent arts suppressed. If it doesn't promote the welfare of the community in accordance with rational principles, ban it. On his ideal platform, the only fully authorised content creator is the state, and that content is "the Form of the Good", as deduced by the insights of philosophy.

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Would Plato tweet? The Ancient Greek guide to social media - BBC News