Blog Post #2

In all three of these articles, all of the authors all voiced their respective opinions on whether or not social activism and politics can be influenced, either positively or negatively, through the use of social media. Walton believes that social media is a great platform for getting information out to all of the people in real time and uses twitter as a strong example. Walton also dives into the details of how social media is a good outlet for information to be given out to less politically involved people during the election, however she believes that since everything you see on your social media feed is tailored to what your interests and beliefs are, so she believes that there could be some biased viewpoints based on your political interests. Stephen also uses twitter as a prime example and uses the “Black Lives Matter” movement as a focal point in the article. Gladwell mostly follows this similar viewpoint and dives into low risks of social activism, however Gladwell provides examples of high risk activism. Gladwell shows how high-risk activism is increased when people are online and angrily post their viewpoints to social media and are content with never going into the real world to change anything they just voice their opinions online. An issue that Gladwell noted was that there is no filter or anyone controlling what is to be posted on social media. This leads to people being able to post ignorant or hate filled messages or something completely inaccurate. All in all, I agree with Walton’s argument the most. She believes that social media is not the most effective way to actually cause a change in society and start a movement, but it is a good baseline to reach out and voice your opinion and make some connections and then use that to actually start a change or gain support for a cause.