The new gatekeepers
By Emmanuel Perilla
Media platforms like Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be considered a part of genuine journalistic publications.
They exist to confirm a reader’s perspective, not to tell the objective truth. For example, the article “We Need More Alternatives To Facebook” states, “If you need a reminder that Facebook’s primary reason for existence is not to enlighten you, consider the fact that the company catalogs a huge amount of information about you.
“The behavior is not suprising,” Zuckerberg claimed years ago that privacy was longer a social norm-but the scale still astonishes. “For example, by cross referencing your behavior on Facebook with files maintained by third-party brokers, the company gathers data on your income, your net worth, your home’s value, your lines of credit, whether you have donated to charity, whether you listen to the radio, and whether you buy over the counter allergy medicine. “t does this so that it can give companies an unprecedented ability to post ads that are presumably likelier to appeal to you.”
This quote makes it clear that Facebook can’t be expected to help journalism. The company takes a user’s data and just shows them ads and information based on what they prefer.
It hinders journalism because journalism is meant to give the public the truth not just show a person what they already believe in. Platforms like Facebook promote sensationalism and actually are enemies of a thriving democracy since its role is not to inform and educate but to keep people in their narrow perspectives. The role of the journalist is to give the public a full picture of what’s going on in their society on all sides and social media platforms are doing the exact opposite of that.
The article “The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism” states, “Greater transparency and accountability are required from platform companies.
“While news might reach more people than ever before, for the first time, the audience has no way of knowing how or why it reaches them, how data collected about them is used, or how their online behavior is being manipulated. “And publishers are producing more content than ever, without knowing who it is reaching or how they are at the mercy of the algorithm.
The biggest problem with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is they serve very linear purposes. Their purpose is to disseminate information regardless if that information isn’t relevant to their user. These platforms don’t really have any system where human editors are overseeing this process and making sure people are being informed well. This is completely undermining real journalism because democracy cannot live if people are just being fed news based on their personal backgrounds.
Platforms like Facebook will just create a population of self-righteous people who think their perspectives are valid and objective but are really very bias. For example, if a user is a Republican but fails to see the flaws and pitfalls of the Republican Party, Facebook most likely won’t provide him with a true picture of what the Republican Party represents.
It will probably just keep giving this user exactly what he wants to see about the Republican Party and will be doing him a great disservice. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can only serve to bring an end to real democracy.
