Writer’s Blog 3: Is Social Media Encouraging Hate & Lies?
Since the introduction of social media in the early 2000s and the start of platforms like Twitter that launched in 2006, the world of online interaction has been a space where hate and lies can grow and thrive. For social media platforms, particularly Twitter and Reddit, this hate has spread across the apps like wildfire, leading to a great deal of controversy and debates online. The bigger issue here is that the platform owners don’t really do anything about it. One of the biggest factors that continues to allow this to happen, specifically in the United States, is a sort of lack of monetization. The fact that the majority of social media sites are democratized means that users can post, say, and share whatever they please. This freedom to share what you want does not mean that these platforms are flat-out encouraging these actions, it simply means that because it is easy to share what you want, it is harder for the platform to track and stop hateful posts altogether.
There are a couple of reasons why it is so hard to put an end to the spread of lies and hatred online. First, many of the symbols and emoticons used on these platforms can not be searched or tracked. Especially on Twitter, the search tools built into the app don’t reveal symbols that are used as hateful slurs. This is because many search engines omit punctuation, so in terms of online hate speech, symbols could be used inappropriately and go undetected (Daniels, 2017). This gap in the search engines on apps like Twitter is a large reason why hate speech continues to thrive. Shockingly enough, there is a way to reprogram the search engine to include these symbols, but these platforms have yet to pursue that route.
The second reason why it is difficult to put an end to hateful posts online is that trolls and propagandists alike disguise themselves on social media. Twitter is an excellent platform when it comes to disguising yourself because it does not have what is called a “real name” policy that requires your profile to have a name that’s issued on some form of government identification (Daniels, 2017). Twitter also does not prohibit automated accounts. This means that bots, trolls, and catfishers can also share whatever they want on this platform with basically no repercussions.
What this continuous hate and lies being shared online come down to is the affordances and constraints we have with online platforms. Obviously, not everyone who owns a social media account is posting hate speech or propaganda, but it’s easy for the ones who do share that, to do so easily. It is because of the people who chose to share hate and propoganda constantly, that they have a more profound platform. The more you post, the more the algorithm boosts your posts, and thus, the more traffic on these digital platforms. Since social media is democratized, there is really no sure way to silence their posts either, since they are simply sharing what they believe, even if it is hurtful and wrong.
This is the advantage of being able to hide behind a screen. You can share whatever you like and do it under a fake account and no one could ever find out it was you. The big question or concern here is directed at these social media companies that allow people to continue posting and sharing such harmful things. Yonatan Zunger, a former Google engineer, summarized the reason by saying, “Twitter chooses to optimize for traffic at the expense of user experience” (2017). Put simply, people continue to post hateful words and propaganda because the app allows them to since it makes the app a profit.
Hate is one of the easiest things that grows and spreads online, and continues to do so for the sake of monetary gain for these social media companies. Apps like Twitter “prioritize driving traffic and its investors’ returns” (Daniels, 2017) over creating a safe and enjoyable experience for the rest of its users. It is important that as users of these platforms, we are cautious of the information and news we see. We have to be careful about what accounts we follow, interact and trust. We also can’t be afraid to block accounts that we don’t like or spread hate speech. It might be a few extra clicks for us, but in the long run, it may be worth it to protect ourselves and others. It is vital that in this everchanging world of social media that we are competent and confident in our own digital literacies to keep us shielded and equipped to find the lies hidden within our feeds.
