Today, Saturday October 10th 2020, is World Mental Health Day. A great day to make this call to Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit etc, etc..

*** This petition is an idea to convince the major social platforms to work together and feature AN OFFICIAL (and constantly updated) POST of positive content as the first thing a user sees each time they log on across every platform...to help remind everyone to #postpositive across all of social media ***

Please read more on this idea below and sign and share.

The Problem:

As of late, while well-meaning, social platforms have focused too much energy and made too many mistakes trying to label, remove, and block false / misleading / hateful / negative content.

It is an important first-step, and they should continue to improve the process.

However, they should also engage their communities and user base to drown out the negative themselves and simply #postpositive.

Sure, they say this now and then one way or another, but what do they actually do to make it happen?

By only focusing on policing the negative, they are missing the entire "other side" of how to solve the problem. And frankly, they are making things more divisive as folks bicker over how the platforms police things.

The Reality:

Social media is the "FRONT PAGE" of today’s world.

Think about the power of Google's homepage -- the first tweet you see on Twitter -- the top of your Facebook Newsfeed or Instagram...

How can we better leverage this collective "front page" for a collective good?

The Solution:

To that end, the goal of this petition is simple:

• We are calling on the major social platforms to cooperate and allow an independent/external group to curate postive content from users and news stories around the world.
• This group will work with each platform to feature an OFFICIAL piece of positive content as the first item a users sees everyday across each platform when they log on.
• If there was buy-in, and a dedicated group to coordinate the effort, it could be come a simple feature of each platform.
• It would help remind/encourage everyone to #postpositive themselves.
• This content could be a featured charity, a postive local news story, a simple/funny drawing from a little kid...whatever. (To start, I am including a pic of my pup, Basil, as the featured image of this petition. Always makes me smile...)

If we convince platforms to donate the very tip-top of their prime real estate (instead of selling it for ads) to promoting something organic and positive...if we remind users to #postpositive in a productive and interesting way each time they log on, it will change the way users interact on social media.

Will this mean all the negativing goes away and sunshiny rainbows forever...of course not. But, if users remember to #postpositive more often, it will tamper down the negative and make social media a better place.

So why overall and why today?

I am a political digital strategist who sits at the intersection of digital media, communications, and politics every day. For the last 6 months I have been doing a side project using social listening and language comparison tools to measure the Presidential election by how people post on social media.

To date I have analyzed over 2 million posts and 50 million words from voters.

Being immersed in this content for the last 6 months has had a negative impact on my own mental health. And I have been thinking for a few weeks, trying to come up with a way to create something postive from all this negative.

Next March, I am having my first child with my beautiful wife. A small initiative like this could help bring him/her into a more positive world. My wife and I used to joke that if people only saw more pics like our pup, Basil, on social media there would be less to fight about. So the idea for encouraging more people to #postpositive was born.

Do you think this is a good/simple idea? I do.

Will you sign and share to generate some buzz and make it happen?

Tell powerful social platforms to use their power to FEATURE positive content as a productive way to combat the negative.

Call on them to join forces, get organized, and leverage their prime real estate to feature #postpositive everyday and remind users to do the same.

Thanks.