Social Media As The Post-Truth Platform
IS SOCIAL MEDIA TO BLAME FOR OUR POST-TRUTH WORLD?
If you don’t post it, it’s not real or it didn’t happen. Posting content is almost a form of having proof of existence. The more you post, the more people know about you. The question is, just because it exists, does that mean the content is true? Let’s say I post a TBT of my vacation in the sun without actually adding a #tbt, will you think that is my current location? I will often times walk down the street and run in to friends that will say, “Hey, you’re back!” Although the photo would have been taken over a month ago, they didn’t know that.
*Cautionary note*: All generalizations being mentioned are not necessarily my beliefs; it is just common things I’ve heard, seen, and studied regarding the spectacle of social media.
The first person to post a story is considered to have the facts because they are “reporting” first. What supposedly matters these days is posting in the “real time now” and worrying about the factual evidence later. Think about it, there are so many accusations flooding the Internet which rapidly change the views of the audience where, by the time the truth comes out, their minds are already made up on what they believe is the truth.
In the crisis management area of public relations, people are hired to take control of a story’s narrative and handle the situation before the public is tricked to believe false statements. It seems we all need to have our own crisis manager these days to fact-check every detail in the media. How the truth is seen depends on personal interests, values, and beliefs. Just as Hamza brought up in class, regardless of the reality, people don’t believe in certain current events.
Turning political let’s say, for example, you’re a liberal here in Canada. You will automatically be against Trump starting with the fact he is a conservative Republican. Of course, you could also be against him because he is a racist, sexist, unqualified voice of nonsense; but that’s another conversation. Either way, you’re most likely to stand by your political party regardless of who is running because that is part of your values and beliefs. Social media is the post-truth platform because it doesn’t matter how factual content may be; if our generation “follows”, is entertained by, or is a fan of the person posting the content, then it will most likely be received as true.
Reflecting back to the Black Mirror episode, “The Waldo Moment”, I see great similarities between Waldo’s popularity and that of Trump’s. An interesting article called, How Technology Disrupted the Truth, stated a quote from Zeynep Tufekci’s essay earlier this year, addressing the rise of Trump “is actually a symptom of the mass media’s growing weakness, especially in controlling the limits of what it is acceptable to say”. Since last week’s class was based on political topics, I wanted to make some comparisons between the current state of American politics and the show to show how social media allows these folks to extend beyond ethical limits to start a conversation.
Waldo is outspoken and often addresses nonsense that is comedic and appealing to the general public, which becomes a form of entertainment. The same goes with Trump and his tactics. Playing dirty, telling lies, and being obnoxious, rude, and disrespectful in both cases moved the candidates ahead in their race. What they both say and how they present themselves is controversial, which makes the headlines. Headlines then become persuasive to a large audience and whether or not the content is true or even relevant to politics, it is often accepted and believed as the truth. In this case though, Trump won the election, Waldo did not.
Jamie, who controls Waldo said, “Waldo doesn’t stand for anything”. His boss responded saying, “Well, at least he doesn’t pretend to. Look, we don’t need politicians. We’ve all got Internet and iPhones, right? Any decision that has to be made, any policy, we just put it online. Let the people vote. Thumbs up, thumbs down; the majority wins. That’s democracy. That’s an action democracy”. Thinking about that excerpt makes me wonder if Trump based his whole campaign on this episode of Black Mirror. Trump is not a politician. He uses his social brand to release information and people are then influenced by all of his statements. Trump, just like Waldo, does not have any regard for society’s morals and values.
Another example in the show shows the opposing candidate and Waldo’s target, Monroe, addressing the audience during a debate stating, “You are laughing at someone who won’t engage, who is afraid to engage, and who hides behind a children’s cartoon”. Hearing that line made me think of how Donald Trump lashes out on Twitter at every person who calls him out on his horrible actions. Rather than being mature and engaging with protestors, Trump hides behind his Twitter handle only to make the problem much bigger. Want a concrete example? Google “Meryl Streep vs. Trump Speech”, although you most likely know the story as it’s been all over social media. His controversy thus boosts his popularity and you know the saying: “controversy sells”. It may not be true, but people buy it up anyways.
With all the previous being said, yes, social media and the power of the Internet are to blame for this post-truth world. We focus far too much on timeliness than we do accuracy and reliability.
On a side note, although my blog post was not on Filter Bubbles, the same Guardian article I read gave a pretty good definition of how the Filter Bubble works, so, I’ll just leave this here: “Publications curated by editors have in many cases been replaced by a stream of information chosen by friends, contacts and family, processed by secret algorithms. The old idea of a wide-open web — where hyperlinks from site to site created a non-hierarchical and decentralised network of information — has been largely supplanted by platforms designed to maximise your time within their walls, some of which (such as Instagram and Snapchat) do not allow outward links at all.”
Article: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth
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