Piers Morgan — a living example of the issues with social media
Piers Morgan has made use of the social media site Twitter to post his controversial opinions on topics. Having over 6 million followers; his opinions are seen by many. He has recently been seen to come into numerous battles with other online personalities such as Ariana Grande who tweeted him following his comments regarding Little Mix’s sexuality in their music videos.
Social media was created with the intention for individuals to share information with online communities. However, there is a difference between sharing information and opinions online and using insult. Piers Morgan has used many examples of how he applies both to online practices — with the most recent example of his insulting attitude towards Ross Greer (shown below).
Many people use insult online, with it being caused due to an expression of their own identities with little to no emotional cues online. Piers Morgan fits in with this crowd; using the social media platform to express opinions but using insult in instances which he disagrees with.
Piers has a history of falsifying information; being fired for false images posted about the Iraqi conflict when he was editor of the Daily Mail. Therefore, it may be hard to trust the information and opinions that he posts online anyway — as with everything, trust has to be earned.
Contrasting this, Piers Morgans Facebook profile is used as a tool for self-promotion of his articles, with opinions being expressed less, and fewer posts published. This page has just above 200,000 likes — significantly less than his Twitter site. This may be why he lacks appearance on Facebook, as he is looking to reach out to the highest number of people at once.
In some ways, Piers Morgans use of social media is effective — he uses sites to express his opinions and provides people with links to his articles that he has written. However, the use of insult on the Twitter platform suggests he is not as effective online as he could be. Using offence online just creates anger, and makes messages come across as insensitive rather than enabling discussion.
This is the issue with modern day social media — it provides an output for insult with little repercussion. Piers consistently posts insulting comments with no consequence, even using insult on Good Morning Britain which he hosts. There have even been petitions created which recognise his inappropriate online presence that do not fit alongside a TV show role. The petition made no change.
Therefore, Piers Morgan provides a good example of where social media is going wrong. It has enabled many more opinions to be expressed, and more ideas to be shared. But, the employment of insult into messages posted online causes opinions to be taken in an incorrect manner. Therefore, Piers Morgans online presence is not effective, and social media has a long way to go before becoming perfect.
