Weekly Post 11
To pick any social media platform and give them a grade, especially this past week about censoring false information or objectable information, the closest grade to an A for me would be Facebook and Instagram, with a grade B. Many times, I see tons of false information spread on Facebook, with absurd information that doesn’t even make a lick of sense, many times with people arguing in the comments. However, one feature I have seen a ton this week alone (at least 10 posts so far) is fact-checking. Immediately when you scroll past the post that has false information, it is blurred out by a warning sign, saying that the information is completely false and was checked by independent fact-checkers.
Typically, when a post is considered false information, right underneath the post is a link or newspaper article describing why this information is ‘fake news’ and what the true information actually is. This is definitely a step forward into stopping the false information spread more and be in people’s heads who only get information from social media. However, the reason why I would give this tactic a B is that I sometimes will see the same post a few times before I see the false information warning. Also, although I am not completely sure how the information gets declared false and who is actually the independent fact checkers, it is a step in the right direction, but I don’t know all the details of how it is done, leaving a small bit of distrust.
I don’t believe any social media platforms received a perfect grade of an A, at least not on any social media platforms that I am on. I believe that it is nearly impossible to censor every false information, however, many platforms have taken the right steps in the right direction. One social media that I believe has failed is probably Snapchat. People can post whatever on that platform and I hardly see any type of censoring. However, Snapchat does have a discover page that posts information from reliable sources, but it is hardly out front for people to see, it has its own page, which I admit, I never look at.
