Influence and Accountability
This topic is not new, widely debated and undoubtedly had books written about it. BUT… here it goes anyway.
People of influence number in the millions and literally span the entire globe. The spheres of influence run the entire gambit as well from your local watering hole, church, synagogue, barber shop, beauty salon to someone who has influence across the globe.
As with the sphere of influence, the nature of accountability changes and grows with it.
If your local bartender gives you a stock tip and you invest money that is subsequently lost based on their tip, you’re not likely to get much sympathy. If you give your life savings to a financial advisor who loses it due a poor choice or mishandling of funds, the conversation is a little different. Why? Trust.
Most people would assume your local bartender isn’t a reliable source for investment advice. Conversely, most people don’t expect to lose their life savings when put into the hands of a professional financial advisor. Again, the issue is trust.
Contrary to some utopian belief, we are not a truly free thinking society. Our life experiences are not created by us every day because unique thoughts we developed in a vacuum. Humans look to others for guidance, direction, social cues for a vast array of decisions that we give no thought to.
We watch tv shows that other people said were good. We go to restaurants that other people have recommended. Society does not parse all the information thrown at them every day, perform their own independent research and then form an opinion. That’s not the real world we live in. We rely on people in our circles that we’ve decided we trust and we leverage their input for decisions based on a certain amount of trust. If you try 3 different restaurants recommended by someone and you hate them all, well you make not take their recommendations anymore. Not because they’re wrong, maybe they don’t share your taste in food, either way, you don’t trust their recommendations anymore to the point you will take action.
People also develop trust in larger figures. Celebrities of all kinds. News media networks. News media personalities. Higher level religious figures such as the Pope. I want to put government leaders in the list, but I’m not sure how true that is these days. Regardless, there are a lot of people who put trust in government leaders.
All these people have influence. Influencer is a newer term, but influence is as old as humans. When these people talk or act, people listen and respond. At what level does that influencer become accountable for their actions?
If you bartender only gave you the stock tip then you just settle your issue with the bartender. Pretty simple. If the financial advisor loses your money, maybe you take him to court for some misconduct. Not as simple, but pretty straight forward.
If someone does or says something who is influencing potentially thousands, 10s of thousands or possibly even millions of people, what’s the standard? When these influences are for the good, it’s easy. We see heart warming stories about how someone of influence changed someone’s life for the better and everyone feels warm and fuzzy.
But what if the influences don’t seem to be so positive? How do we deal with that as a society? The devil made me do it isn’t a valid defense if you’re the one being influenced and you do something that gets you in trouble. We know from a practical aspect there was influence, but the onus is ultimately on the individual. The influencer is typically not on the hook. One extreme exception is Charles Manson. I’m referring to the grayer areas where decisions can be influenced that maybe aren’t best for an individual but not to the point of criminal behavior.
Lately, the common defense for influencers who have been in the hot seat for using their influence to promote unpopular positions is that they’re just entertainers. We’re not doctors here. We’re not scientists here, why would anyone believe us or take what we say as gospel? Because that’s what people do and they know that better than anyone else. People chose to be influenced by those who align with their personal beliefs already. People go to their religious institutions because that institution is promoting beliefs they align with. People take in news content from sources they like because it lines up with their political belief system. They trust those sources. Because they trust it, they believe it.
When you’re in a position of influence where people trust you and believe what you say, you can’t discard that responsibility when it’s convenient. You own it. It comes with the influencer territory.
There’s a reason products use celebrities to market, endorse and sell their products. Trust. They’re literally banking on the fact that people will trust that celebrity’s opinion enough to buy their product.
If the product is junk, the celebrity’s reputation could be tarnished too.
Our society has a demented relationship with influencers today. They do a lot of influencing in ways that can be debated and questioned by many, yet they thrive none the less.
Technology has created a means to reach a very large number of people very quickly. It’s up to us a global society to determine how best to apply it. It will be a debate that continues long after I’m gone.