Social Media the outlet for harmful opinions?
Social media has become the place for people to share not only happy pictures, videos and tweets of their life. But also a platform to share hatred, slander and even threats. Social media has always been a place for people to feel like they can share what they want without any repercussion. They feel this way because they think they are protected behind the screen and even sometimes an alias. I don’t think these platforms are the ones to blame, but I think they could do a better job of monitoring the content being posted. Platforms such as instagram have settings where you have the option to block certain words from being commented on your post. Which I think if theres an ability to do that. It should also be able to block words from things people post themselves. Which I understand can get tricky especially in situations that are trying to raise awareness of terrible things that happen in the world. Although a tricky thing to find a solution on I think it needs to be more of a conversation.
An unsettling scenario that particularly troubles me is when individuals planning violent acts, such as school shooters, share images of firearms or allude to their intentions on social media. Unfortunately, these alarming posts often go unnoticed until it is too late or fail to be promptly removed. Another example is when gypsy rose posted on her moms Facebook “that bitch is dead”. Till this day it is still on her moms facebook and that was nine years ago. After that post was made gypsy wasn’t even arrested till four days later. It’s scary to think all the posts that are swept under the rug or are not seen at all. It’s even scarier that not much is done about them until it’s too late.
It also brings up the point of cyber bullying. People can receive numerous threats, slander and hateful speech and have nothing done about it. Even when reported or shown to police it takes days on end to finally be dealt with. In the world of social media being so propionate and a main form a communication. Things like this are detrimental not only to mental health but people’s safety. Cyber bullying ruins people lives. Till this day we haven’t found a concrete solution to this problem. I personally believe it's an issue that is commonly overlooked. When this should be something were actively trying to shut down. Especially because as I said social media is so heavily used in our society today.
I find it quite interesting how platforms such as Tik Tok will take down of video of you dancing with friends for being in violation of community guidelines. But will keep a video up of people saying derogatory words and slander. When I think of situations like this it makes me angry. Not because my video was taken down but that theres more time spent monitoring harmless videos that videos that are the real problem. When people are allowed to post whatever they want no matter how harmful it is, it gives them the idea what they are doing is okay. Which only fuels them to continue their actions.
I have always loved social media. Which is why I decided my major to be centered around it. But now I am rethinking everything. I believe social media does more bad than good these days. I want social media to go back to the fun care free environment where people were able to post silly, happy pictures and videos. Not a place where people spew hatred and create cancel culture. I think social media platforms have a lot of work to do to create a better happier environment for its users.
