Social Media: an Integral Part of Politics
A presidential campaign based on frenzied sound bites and rapid-fire tweets thrust a debate on social media and technology into the spotlight. Facebook was accused of influencing the election results by their lack of vigilance concerning fake news stories, prompting an internal investigation. Anyone with a domain name could make thousands of dollars by writing up a fake article that looked legitimate enough, providing it went viral and catered to the drama-driven will of the people. In spite of all the evils technology has brought to the political word, its benefits should not dismissed out of hand. The use of social media has invigorated democracy by engaging many in worldwide movements. Live streams of senate votes help to increase government transparency and hold the elected representatives of the people accountable for their decisions.
As politics grapples to find the balance between the dangers and benefits of technology, time will prove whether it overwhelms democracy or strengthens it.
Many companies faced backlash over their support of Donald Trump. One notable example is the ride-sharing company Uber. After being perceived as supporting Trump’s executive order restricting travel from seven muslim majority nations, more than 200,000 people deleted the company’s app and began an online campaign to shut down the business. The public outcry led to Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, stepping down from Trump’s circle of advisors.
Technology and the ability to share photos has also helped spread awareness for hot-button issues like the Dakota Access Pipeline and various marches in Washington, D.C. The #noDAPL hashtag made the pipeline that would have otherwise torn through sacred Native American ground a national movement. Thousands of people from around the world joined the Native Americans in protest at various stages along the planned route, including people of other tribes, veterans and a large amount of elders and young children. There were similar results in the women’s marches around the world following Inauguration Day and the planned events to come.
Many of the recent senate confirmation hearings and votes for Trump’s nominated cabinet members were live streamed on C-SPAN and posted on Facebook. One of the hearings in particular, the one of Betsy DeVos, exposed her shocking lack of knowledge about the department she now leads. Publicized discussions in the government such as these help the public to understand the officials that will come to represent them and hold their representatives accountable for their votes. Increased government transparency of this sort inevitably leads to a truer democracy that is bound to the will of the people it serves, for better or worse.
Not all of technology’s involvement in the political sphere is positive. In fact, it may leave Democratic ideals worse off than ever before. One of the harshest examples of the damage it causes is in the President’s own tweets. He is known to type things out that are seen by millions without thought or fact-checking. The harm of these rushed statements, often unbased in fact or reason, increases exponentially on a social media platform like Twitter, that easily allows reposts that draw attention to misinformation. Social media has become a fast-moving business that significantly lowers the barrier for users to put something out into the world. In contrast to writing a letter or poster, which requires a higher degree of capability, reasoning and planned thoughts, most social media platforms make it easy to spread falsities and rash statements.
Although the effect of fake news sources and articles on the election results is unproven as of yet, it has the ability to cement inherent biases and spread false information that is often believable. The added harm is that some writers of fake news articles that go viral profit of this scheme that deceives readers and endangers the journalistic profession. It has also been used to denounce credible sources—purely because their views differ—by the White House administration. Debasing conflicting opinions in this fashion, or even real facts, is a dangerous practice that models intolerance and obstructs progress.
As politics grapples to find the balance between the dangers and benefits of technology, time will prove whether it overwhelms democracy or strengthens it. Since the outset of people vying for power, there has always been a struggle between external factors and their degree of influence on the future of a nation. The United States is not the only country faced with challenges of money, technology and rising extremism pervading its political arena. The trend spans the globe, in French elections, Brexit, the coming dissolution of the European Union and militant extremism in the Middle East, and they are all affected or encouraged in part by the power in technology. If we learn to use it, the bonds between nations, between people, could become stronger than ever in history. At the same time, we run the risk of absolute apocalypse.