Use of Social Media in Elections
Shirky calls the Obama campaign one of the most innovative uses of social media ever. Obama engaged with the group, FISA, and explained his vote. The group members still weren’t happy, but then they realized that, although they had almost taken over Obama’s campaign site, nobody tried to hide the group, to delete it, or take it off the site. The role of MyBO.com was to convene their supporters, but not to control their supporters. That is why Shirky considers the Obama Campaign as a “real mature use” of social media.
Regarding our late President, Donald J. Trump, I believe that he did not make good use of social media. At all. He went so far as to get his account permanently banned from Twitter due to Posts inciting violence. People interpreted his tweet, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” as a indication that the inauguration was fake, and that it will be a “safe” target for violence as he would not be attending. Twitter even went on to say that they would not allow Trump to operate Twitter as a 3rd party. Trump made attempts to tweet from other accounts but the posts got instantly removed by twitter. He did not make a “real mature use” of social media as Obama did.
Although Twitter was in the right here, I am unsure of whether to be afraid or excited about this. Knowing that a social media company has the power to stop government officials, including the president of the country, from posting to the public. How far will this go in the future?
Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaboraters. In C. Shirky, Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaboraters (pp. 1–65). Penguin Books Ltd.
~SUDS
