By Mae Tigay
The United States now is more divided than ever before and social media has played a huge part in this. “Social Dilemma,” a new documentary on Netflix explores the negative effects of social media on individuals and digs deeper into the way in which it has further polarized our country. The root of this “social dilemma” is about the amount of control a few tech designers have over the way billions of us think and act. The movie explains how networks like Facebook or Twitter are used as tools to manipulate public opinion by using our psychology against us.
How exactly does this happen? The documentary starts by first explaining how addiction to social media is developed. All of our data is being poured into these systems that make predictions about who we are and what we like to keep us engaged on our phones. As said in an article from Wired, it all comes from the algorithms: “They are controlling what we can and cannot see. But ‘they’ aren’t the executives leading Google, Facebook, and other technology companies. ‘They’ are the opaque, influential algorithms that determine what content billions of internet users read, watch, and share next.” These algorithms may seem helpful at first, as they give us exactly what we want on our social media feeds and can accurately predict what we will want; but algorithms can be extremely harmful given the fact that we only ever see one side. People go on social media to see the things they already agree with and not to learn new, factual information. Based on what we search, countless algorithms give us back what we want to see, even if it is fake news. According to the New York Times, “the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns on social media doubled in the past two years.” Most social media platforms don’t filter out information based on its accuracy, giving anybody access to spread propaganda that may not even be based in reality. With the platform social media gives to anyone to reach billions of people at once and the algorithms feeding people fake news, this is fuel for the political division we already see happening in the world.
So, we know how this happens, but why? Dr. Nathaniel Ivers explained to Forbes magazine, “It seems to me that the goal of those disseminating political information on social media and through some news outlets has devolved into how much they can make the other side seem inconsistent, disingenuous, or absurd, rather than to provide accurate details about events.” This relates to how much more critical people have become on social media. Rather than trying to spread useful, factual information, social media have collectively turned politics into an online war, making the focus on winning, instead of having correct information and ultimately dividing us more.
Recently, examples of social media’s power have been frequent, but most prominently around the right extremist insurrection at the capitol building. With the help of social media, Trump has convinced his supporters to believe he won the election. His Twitter platform was abused to incite the violence expressed at the capitol raid by urging his supporters to march in anger of him losing the election. Just as the documentary warned, social media allowed for the spread of fake news and misinformation about the election, and now the consequences are being experienced.
sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2019/10/30/does-social-media-make-the-political-divide-worse/?sh=196cf2f96e3a
https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-is-not-the-same-as-free-reach/
https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/