Social Media & Political Affiliation

Social media, such as Facebook, is a very useful technology that helps people connect with each other, promote businesses and unregulated markets, brag about the meals we eat for the day, gives us the news,  and my personal favorite -- memes. Although social media websites such as Facebook fulfills its purpose in a very entertaining way, there is a deeper more powerful tool that it has - a platform for fake news.

When I was a Junior and Senior in high school that had no clue what the right and left were,  I admit I watched a lot of Info Wars by Alex Jones and I believed his rhetoric because, as Robin mentioned, he is a very convincing man that has a talent in adding his own political views into objective news. Although I did not agree with everything he said, I agreed with most of it. It wasn't until I graduated from high school that I found out it was a load of BS and tried to find a more reputable news source such as Fox 9. Just kidding we can hardly call that news. My journey to find a reputable news source that was accessed easily without having to type www. (name of news station) .com led me to the world of news on Facebook that was easily accessed by the click of an app. We have all heard of the "fake news" that our beloved president has so unfairly been treated by, little does he know it was the same fake news that got him elected in the first place. A lot of the pages that I liked on FB, along with pictures, in a way shaped my political views. As someone who logged onto FB everyday news ranged from immigration issues, BLM, poverty, decisions made by political figures, war, debt, Republicans and Democrats, etc. Facebook was always good with delivering The Daily Show at the top of my newsfeed and The Other 98%. As a matter of fact, for those of you who are unaware, Facebook actually has you categorized based on your political affiliation. If you want to know how to see what FB has labeled you, follow these steps: SETTINGS>ACCOUNT SETTINGS>ADS>YOUR INFORMATION>YOUR CATEGORIES>U.S. POLITICS. Surprisingly enough, I was labeled a liberal. As someone who does not really identify as liberal, conservative, or even moderate (based on its definition) I can see how I was categorized this way, but it's alarming to see how we are all categorized. Essentially, if you like ignorant posts or pages, you will be fed more ignorant and untruthful posts, pages, and ads, thus a cycle of a war on knowledge not based on ignorance, but by the illusion of knowledge, as Stephen Hawkings so eloquently puts it, is maintained. 

This was interesting because if I had liked Infowars or other unfactual pages that were "convincing" on FB when I first opened my account, I may just have been Republican and Conservative in my way of living and thinking. Because I tried following pages that showed facts that I could find in other reputable/credible sources, I began to follow more pages with Liberal content although I do not identify as liberal. Rejecting many beliefs of both the left and right wing politics, I believe that digital technology has a huge power to influence not only an individual person's beliefs or lifestyle, but as we saw in the 2016 presidential elections, it can also influence a whole country, and if it is the right country, then consequently the whole world.

In conclusion, fake news and "alternative facts" being shoved down people's throats leads us to question the real unintended power of technologies such as social media. Don't get me wrong, memes are my thing, I have over 1,000 saved on my phone and complain about insufficient space, however, it really gives us something to think about and even ask a further questions such as, "What poses a bigger threat, a nuclear bomb, or the outlet that influenced supporters of a political party that demand it to be dropped in the first place?"