Social Media and Competing Truths
When Nikki Haley disavowed Donald Trump this month, the media framed the story as a major turning point in the battle for control of the Republican Party. Haley, someone regarded as the future of the party, had bet against the continuation of Trumpism. While this was indeed a major moment, something Haley said in her interview struck me much more than what she said about Trump himself.
When asked about Trump’s pushing of theories that the election was rigged, Haley said: “That would be like you saying that grass is blue and you genuinely believing it. Is it irresponsible that you’re colorblind and you truly believe that?”
Haley recognizes that the fundamental key to Trumpism is social media falsehoods (something that ironically Trump has seemed to fall for himself). But to millions of Americans, these falsehoods are the absolute and only truth, and the way they propagate online is the key to the future of politics.
In the course reading “‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America” a 2018 piece published by Eli Saslow in the Washington Post, Saslow interviews the head of a satirical Facebook page that sends out false and doctored Pro-Trump and Anti-Democrat content. The leader of that page, Christopher Blair states: “No matter how racist, how bigoted, how offensive, how obviously fake we get, people keep coming back. Where is the edge? Is there ever a point where people realize they’re being fed garbage and decide to return to reality?”
I hear so much about how this problem will get worse as misinformation becomes more believable, due to the rise of Deepfake videos and advances in image editing. However, this misinformation is often not realistic at all, yet this doesn’t seem to matter. What astounds me is that it never is believable. The images are often blurred or obviously doctored, the headlines are easily proved false with a simple Google search, and the Pro-Trump memes are always misspelled, and large “This information has been deemed false by independent factcheckers” notices appear over many of the posts. However, none of this seems to matter to the thousands of individuals interacting with this content.
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway coined the term “Alternative Facts” during a press conference several years ago. While she was relentlessly mocked for the comment, Conway was right. A fact once had to be the truth. There could only be one right answer. The words “Alternative” and “Fact” should be mutually exclusive, but that is no longer the case.
Author Donny Miller famously said: “In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.” However, the problem is no longer an issue of ignorant individuals. It is now systemic. This is no longer misinformation. This is truth to these social media users. The only truth. As we seek to eliminate this problem, we must understand it as a battle of competing truths, not a battle of information.
