Give’em a grade — Post 11
I think it would be hard for me to give social media a specific grade about how they have been handling the election information, but I think I could offer more of a “pass or fail” type decision.
The reason I don’t feel as if I can grade different medias, because I have only been following one — that’s Twitter. It is funny because until recently, more around the election, I never actually used Twitter. I had an account made, and would get on occasionally to satisfy the craving of checking each social but I never thought I benefited from it. With this election, Twitter has allowed me to follow real time news, whether it be false or not. Because they offer the search, or trending page, I can get an idea of what I would normally see in a newscast. To me, Twitter is the news channel of social media. I can see what is going on, and then pursue further research about the topic and get more incite.
That being said — Twitter has had a tremendous outpour of opinions and commentary from news stations in regards to the election and the polls of each state. Heck, even our President turns to Twitter to relay his interpretation of information. I would say, Twitter for me, passes, when it comes to the election information. Most of the tweets from the president are accusing the election of being rigged, and what I like that Twitter has done, is began censoring Donald’s tweets. They didn’t take them down, they censored them. I think this is important to recognize because if they took the tweets down, then assuming Donald tweeted something actually accurate, it could be lost forever, or it could be on Twitter trying to silence the “truth.” What it has done is censored the tweets with a note that states — “Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” I think this is unique because it still allows viewers to see the tweet, should they click it. It is in that moment where although Twitter is censoring the information, it is giving viewers the power to either accept it, but still read it, or ignore the warning and give them the opportunity to believe what they want to believe should the viewer approve of his tweets.
I think they are measuring up to exactly how social media should handle misinformation that could completely derail something so important to our U.S. American culture. I think that we put so much power in social media, and I think this is social media using its power to not allow some external force to delegate or “brainwash” the people. It is Twitter holding even the highest people in charge accountable as they would the average citizen. I think that it is so important for Twitter to do this because not a lot of people even understand politics and because Twitter is so mainstream and accessible, without the censorship it could falsely influence people. I think it is Twitter also covering its own butt because then someone can’t accuse Twitter in any way of siding with false claims.
I love that even news outlets from both parties are even questioning Donald’s false claim to victory. I think that all outlets seem to be doing a very good job at staying consistent across the board about the information they are sharing. Now obviously, stations like Fox News and CNN are going to give their own biased opinions of the information, but I think the information they are giving to people in regards to the numbers seem to be consistent.
