Social Media Makes Idiots
Kicking a dead horse is a bad habit, but some horses really need all the kicking they can get. The social media bubble deserves to be bludgeoned forever.
In typical human fashion, 2016 has been picked out as the worst year of the decade. What of course is less meme-tastic is how many of last year’s problems were only the culmination of stuff that built up the previous six years. One reason 2016 looked so awful to progressives was that our bubble was finally burst.
Several events served as an overdue wake-up call that a huge proportion of the population vehemently disagrees with us. We can’t even imagine why anyone would think some of the things that are happening are good ideas. And yet, the Brexit referendum and the US presidential and senate elections show that the world outside campuses and cities thinks they’re awesome.
But before there’s any bursting, there has to be a bubble. This one, the “filter bubble”, is about social media.
Firstly, what’s social about social media? Let’s compare them to TV, radio and newspapers, where the only way to interact is to phone in. Or perhaps it’s social in contrast to the rest of the internet. Wikipedia, Google Maps, weather.com: these provide information for one user at a time. On social media, everything is about user input.
The visitor provides their own content, from 140 character witticisms to YouTube videos. There is also tons of user feedback, in the form of thoughtful discussions, quick and easy clicks to the Like-button, and in vitriolic stacks of death threats. Most importantly, while other media is sought out directly, social media is shared. “Friend” to “friend”, on timelines, by retweets, or directly messaged.
But is social media so different from “the media”? A majority of users get news from social networks. We’re still interested in what happens in the world, and now we can like and share the day’s headlines.
Maybe it’s a hyper-digital form of the ancient word-of-mouth that spread current affairs since mammoth herd movements were breaking news. Seeing only what friends share makes it more likely the news will actually interest you. In fact, some websites filter content automatically.
But is all news created (and reposted) equal?
Social media is spread by humans. Our decisions are guided by human factors. Feelings. Whether something is spread around most doesn’t at all depend on accuracy, but on how angry it makes people, how much it affirms our beliefs.
This leads people with different opinions to have different ideas about the real world. Conversation depends on common ground, democracy depends on conversations. And last year, we’ve been seeing how hard it’s become to engage in conversations with people we disagree with.
Occasionally, social media promotes actual misinformation, or fake news. Fake news has become so widespread and so important to our political discourse, “post-truth” was voted word of the year 2016.
Die-hard defenders of free speech will argue that this is absolutely fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and perhaps also to their own version of the truth. But is it still fine when a fake story leads to real violence? Take “pizzagate”: an entirely fabricated story about a child abuse ring led to a gunman shooting around in a pizza restaurant, thankfully without hurting anyone. More broadly targeted, many fake stories talk about refugees. Recently, a picture of a refugee taking a selfie with Chancellor Angela Merkel was used in (entirely false) allegations that the young man had ties to the terrorist attacks in Brussels, leading him to sue Facebook.
And Facebook took notice. There is so much pressure on them and other social networks now, they’re trying harder to delete false news stories.
And while conflating facts and beliefs is not the same as spreading misinformation, it can still mean big trouble.
Take climate change. It’s already an issue, and if not addressed will have devastating consequences to every country on Earth. But in the United States, concern about climate change is split according to party political lines.
The current President has in fact repeatedly denied global warming and cracked down on the US Environmental Protection Agency, deleting its climate change data and ordering them to stay away from media. Many US data centres are now trying to move information abroad to keep it safe. But the time to act is not tomorrow but today, and the post-truth age might be what future generations will blame for their destroyed planet.
But back to social media: we shouldn’t be taken by surprise this year. To make a difference, we need to keep an eye on public opinion before the next big decision. Otherwise we’ll find ourselves just along for the ride again, in the back seat again with no way to reach the steering wheel.
But what to do except for complaining?
Well, we can try to consume media from broader selection of sources. Half the population isn’t evil, and reading what they read makes it easier to talk to them. Also, it takes two to tango; a lot of fake news has been going around in my filter bubble, too. So maybe we should think twice before sharing something; check if it’s true, or if we only want it to be.
And finally: we can always log off and talk to strangers in the real world. Pubs (abbrev: “public house”) used to be good for that. There are many ways to be social, and not all of them need media.
With thanks to Eloise Douglass
