Social Media and The 2020 Presidential Election
In past presidential elections, younger people and many people of lower economic statuses have chosen to not vote. However, with the recent election, that all changed, and here’s why.
The recent election has made the United States of America (once again) a hot topic across the world. With recent protests, unlawful killings and rights being taken away, people living outside the United States question, “Why are the people allowing this? Isn’t it a democracy? The land of the ‘free’?”. However, even before the year 2020 or 2016, the unlawful killings, protest, and rights being taken away have always happened, they were just not so publicly broadcasted.
Social media is to thank for spreading information of the injustices happening with the country as well as what encouraged people to vote.
·Majority of U.S. citizens that are of voting age are active social media users. The current president of the United States was an active and frequent user of social media and used it to spread his messages to people far and wide.
·“BlackLivesMatter” started as a social media post but has progressed into fundamental movement that will change the United States as well as other regions of the world. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner are a few names that have significant ties to the movement and will never be forgotten.
· The use of social media allowed many people to change their views on what was taking place in the United States as well as for people living outside of the United States, they were able to relate the ongoing issues here to some back in their home countries.
· With so many young people on social media, those battling with society’s view on their sexual orientation finds solace in social media groups or pages that express their concerns for them. They have a place to feel included when the outside world excludes them.
· The way social media also projects inclusive ideas on the LGBTQ+ community also reaches far and can see the treatment and struggles they go through just to feel equal and can change their views on people who identify with the group.
· Social media has given women another platform to be heard in a world full of men who take control. The #MeToo movement allowed women to speak up and be heard about sexism and sexual abuse that happens in industries across the world.
· Social media has also given women a way to have their voices be heard about laws that remove their rights to do what they chose to their bodies.
Presidency Candidates use of Social Media
During the election, each candidate had to figure out ways to reach their supports and non-supporters to gain their support. Social media is a great way to get information to your supports fast and Twitter seemed to be the most favorable platform to use.
The graph above shows how much people search the terms “Biden twitter” and “Trump twitter” from 2019–2020. It is clear that President Trump’s twitter stayed fairly popular the entire time period and President-Elect Biden’s twitter had a slight decrease in attention but quickly caught up with President Trump during the end of 2020.
If we take a step back to look at before it was 2020 Election year, we can see that Trump’s twitter was a very hot google search. This is because it is a popular way for him to express his opinions and views to the public. It is also a way for him to reaction and respond to media outlets.
Social Media’s Efforts to Encourage People to Vote
This year’s election made more people vote in the United States than ever in History. Social Media can take a lot of credit for this. Many social media platforms have made it a priority to stress the importance of voting to their users and reminded them every day to register to vote and learn more about the voting laws and processes in their state. For example, Twitter popularized hashtags such as “#VoteEarly, #IVoted, #IVotedEarly, and #YoVoté” and even gave the “like” buttons on tweets that included these hashtags special emotions to add emphasis.
Twitter has also prompted their users daily to check on updates regarding the election with factual information so the user can stay properly informed. In the section below you will find out more about how Twitter and other social media platforms dealt with false information without threatening American citizens’ right to free speech. (President Trump said they were…)
What Social Media Platforms are doing to stop the spread of false information
Although social media has been a way to get recent changes in society to a larger audience, so has false information. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been working hard to stop the spread of false information related to the 2020 presidential election. Twitter has even began blocking tweets from users with false information with a “proceed with cation” kind of message. Instagram does similar things as it blurs out the picture with the words “Fact-check” on it and again, gives users a “view the material with caution” kind of message. Instagram has also limited what users can see when searching popular hashtags in order to stop the spread of falso information.
Cnbc.com reports that these social media sites have even flagged some of President Trump’s post stating it was false information. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram continually update their users on the current election in efforts to get real and current information out to them so they will not be swayed by the false messages.
This year’s election has definitely changed the way future elections will be handled forever. All thanks to the influence and capacity social media has on today’s users.
