Blog #1: IS SOCIAL MEDIA TO BLAME FOR OUR POST-TRUTH WORLD?
The post-truth world is a world built on fabrication and disguise. Social media now allows us to post whatever we want and however so. Where the internet once served as a platform for the ‘truth’ now, anyone can share their insights because the internet is so accessible. This can be extremely problematic for people since it diminishes the validity of the so-called ‘truth’ of something.
We are all too familiar with the post-truth world. For one, we saw a significant example of it in 2016. Any guesses? …Yeah, that’s right — Donald Trump! Donald’s electoral process created a chain of effects that influenced a nation of people to segregate. Social media played a major contender in this election. Countries across the Atlantic Ocean were hyperventilating as we watched The United States of America turn the clock 200 years back. Now, whether you’re a Republican or supported Trump during this election is entirely irrelevant. Everyone should be able to carry out their beliefs. The point of this post is that with the help of social media, some of the opinions shared by Trump were argued to have been factually correct. The issue is that when something like a primary election hits the web, anyone with access to a modem and digital screen can communicate their opinions. Many times, people have a very limited understanding of something and spread information without backing it up with any legitimate sources.
An example of this was there were complaints on terrorists. Some comments even went as far to say that all Muslims were terrorists. Now, I am a firm believer that no religion is evil but, often extremists interpret the religion in a negative way that misrepresents the entire religion. I am not surprised that this occurs since a lot of people are uneducated on this type of stuff. In fact, I recently discussed this topic with a girl who explained to me this exact thing. When I asked her how she got to this conclusion about the religion she said, and I quote “Well, the news…and online, and stuff.” Now before you rip on this girl, you have to understand that many of us are not as fortunate to know that we shouldn’t believe everything that we read online or hear in the news. Unfortunately, this is the case with many people. Therefore, no wonder it is so difficult to believe in everything that we read online since most of the information we acquire comes from sources that do not see the whole picture.
In part, social media is at blame for our post-truth world because how are you going to believe some of the things that are posted online if so many written pieces are a reflection of the blogger’s beliefs. Therefore, it is important to make sure that you keep an open mind when it comes to what you are reading online. In a way, we are at fault for thinking that we can believe everything online since we already know that not everyone in the world is as progressive as us and that anyone can post online. These are truths we already know. So, why do we choose not to believe them? Why do we let the post-truth world affect us?
