Social media’s misinformation conflicts with the ideals of democracy
Staff Writer
When people think of America, the first words to pop into their mind are typically liberty, opportunity, capitalism, and democracy. Each of these ideals are in fact related to freedom: freedom to live your own life, to make your own choices, to have your own job or business, and to have your own opinions. All of this is granted to US citizens through our government system, which was put in place to protect our natural rights.
American citizens are also granted the ability to have a say in who runs our government through a democracy. An authoritarian government will only tolerate one single opinion, that of the government’s. What allows a democracy to correctly function is a tolerance of others’ opinions. This will foster freedom of expression and speech, a principle not present in dictatorships.
Looking back at our modern society, it is obvious that tolerance of differing opinions is not widespread in America. Citizens will often refrain from what they want to say in the interest of political correctness, and this manifests itself in our political system when a candidate will only support the ideals of their respective party or promote popular opinion. One who does not do so risks losing elections, harming their reputation and wasting money spent to fund their campaign.
Additionally, political polarization in America has increased dramatically in the past 20 years. According to the Pew Research Center, “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades.” Now we ask ourselves–what has happened in the last 20 years to cause this polarization? The answer: social media.
Social media was intended to be a way to connect the world. However, with the introduction of news feeds, algorithms, and new features intended to increase screen time, it has devolved into a feeder of biased, user-created information tailored to each user’s opinions. Algorithms determine what type of posts a user is interested in (which is usually aligned with that user’s views), and feed the user what they want to see, thus increasing screen time, resulting in more profit for the company.
An unintended effect of this is that the user becomes more polarized, as they spend more time in their bubble of personal truths. When the user is exposed to a view opposite theirs, they believe it is their duty to defend their personal truths, resulting in debates, arguments, flame wars, and sometimes even culminating in real-life violence.
The effects of social media on society is already apparent. When COVID-19 hit, people speculated the origin of the pandemic. Because of social media, lies spread quickly among various platforms, obscuring the truth. Each person believed what they thought and wanted to be true, lest it be that it originated from China, was spread by 5G towers, was spread by the government as a social experiment, or that the whole thing didn’t exist. The results were hate crimes against Asian citizens, bombings and burnings of 5G towers, and a spike in anti-vax movements, many of which resulted in loss of lives. The FBI reported a 77% increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans between 2019 and 2020, and the National Library of Medicine found that 77 mobile towers in the UK were burned during the pandemic.
Social media’s adverse effects were not limited to the pandemic. The Pizzagate conspiracy, which was born in the message board 4chan, was a false allegation that a pedophile ring, sponsored by Bill and Hillary Clinton, was being run in the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. The conspiracy theory rapidly spread across the Internet, death threats were sent to the restaurant’s owner, and the ordeal resulted in a man walking into the restaurant and firing a gun at an employee. Although no injuries occurred, this goes to show the power and influence social media can have on society. In fact, the theory has recently resurged partly due to it being spread on TikTok.
While we can point fingers to the perpetrators of the crimes, the true cause is social media and how it fans out false information. The fact that social media can cause a person to completely believe in fake news and refuse to tolerate any other opinion goes directly against the cornerstone of democracy that is acceptance of differing opinions. Yet, social media and democracy can coexist, provided that social media is treated as a regular news organization. According to Pew Research Center, “half of U.S. adults get news at least sometimes from social media.” Half of America receiving potentially biased or fake news is definitely an issue.
If social media companies disallow fake news and begin to provide reliable sourcing for users to fact-check messages themselves, the negative effects of social media will be lessened. Several bills, such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) Act, have been introduced to Congress. KOSA and SAFE’s main goal is to protect the mental health of minors, and in doing so regulates the addictive algorithm that is the root cause of increased political polarization.
While we can’t change what the government does easily, we can make a difference by controlling our use of social media. Media apps are made to be addicting, and many can’t resist checking on it, only to waste a half hour on their phones. Additionally, certain types of social media tend to be more polarizing than others, resulting in the political polarization we see today. It is best to limit time spent on such apps, and skip over infuriating posts that may cause a violent reaction. Such posts are made simply to get attention. Being able to control our anger and understand differing views, as well as a bit of critical thinking, is vital to maintaining America’s democracy.
Social Media and News Fact Sheet | Pew Research Center
Political Polarization in the American Public | Pew Research Center
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