Could it Hurt?
By Johnny Benavides
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter both hinder and help journalism, but I do believe for the most part social media platforms hurt journalism. Social media platforms provide a great way of receiving information at a faster rate more than ever in human history, but that doesn’t mean this is a positive for journalism. Platforms with no repercussion for spreading misinformation, holds no accountable for the spread of fake news. And people believe anything they read, I do not understand why if words are written down people just believe they are a holy universal truth that cannot be doubted for one second.
LIke the man in the John Oliver episode shown in class in Myanmar or known as Burma, where he read islamophobia postings on Facebook and believed the posting to be true of muslims.
Also he never met a muslim person in his life, just propaganda promoting hate. Convincing to hate seems so prominent in today’s political climate especially towards muslims, as evident from Trump’s tweet promoting violence towards congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Incorporating the 9/11 footage to edited video of congresswoman Omar to make her seem like a hateful person towards the event. Even though this country has killed who knows how many times over civilians in the middle east. But the platform does not receive backlash for the ability to promote hate. Also adding to the fact that platform like Twitter and Facebook personalize every account for the user to be on longer.
Mentioned in a slide of the powerpoint “Zuckerberg doubtless means well, but the problem is not that we need a slightly better Facebook. It’s that Facebook — a company worth $400 billion because it vacuums up information about our tastes, our shopping habits, our political beliefs, and just about anything else you might think of — is too powerful in the first place. What we need is to spend less time on Facebook” .
These platform are designed for cultivating our habits and selling our information to sellers to market to us. The system of capitalism is a scheme to suppress growth with the illusion of of economic freedom. And these platforms are no different, the illusion of providing a service of freedom but in actually just platforms to write rhetoric that will endanger the lives of counts with no fall out or repercussions. With no accountable these sites hurt journalism, how can having no integrity be good for a source your looking at to be honest hold.
