I owe my career to Twitter, but two years reporting on the pandemic has made me realise disinformation costs lives
![Social media is a bad feelings machine. Why can’t we just turn it off for good? | Sirin Kale](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/23135419657af6dcb9bae63594618cba092cb5ac/0_127_7926_4756/master/7926.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=88122631613eebd23f42322521d322cd)
I have a fantasy and it goes like this: a political party is formed, running on an anti-social-media platform. It campaigns on a pledge to ban social media. (“SWITCH IT OFF” is its straightforward, and elegant, slogan.)
The party wins a general
election and at midnight, on what comes to be known as
Social Media Freedom Day, the prime minister pushes a giant button that blocks all access to social media. Crowds cheer. On the anniversary of Social Media Freedom Day – which becomes a bank holiday, of course – children burn effigies of
Mark Zuckerberg and dress up as the
Twitter bird.
Sirin Kale is a Guardian journalist