The New Political Social Platforms
In an era of
immediate gratification, and the need for the here and now, most people like to
be in the know, (or at least think that they are). News is right at our finger
tips since carry on devices have invaded the population in masses. Since anyone
can create a website or operate a news feed how credible is the news?
We see clips
from government officials blasting the news media as corrupt and incoherent
posses with evil agendas threatening to put an end to society as we have come
to know it. There are rampages from some of the highest offices in our nation
carried out over Twitter. News videos highlighting some new scandal could
easily replace televised soap operas and reality shows. We just can’t wait to
see what will happen next!
Our elected
officials seem to think social media is for combat. Then there is fake news,
and real fake news or is it just the fake news that is fake? Perhaps, our
government defines fake news differently than the term might be interpreted by
Twitter users. Who knows? We just don’t need all the drama
So, my
question is what is the actuality? Are we really living in a time when
accepting truth as lies and lies as truth is normal? Orson Welles, (2018) apparently
taught society nothing when he made the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds.
As people tuned into the show, it was so realistic people panicked. They
thought the planet was being taken by aliens as the work of fiction played out
over the radio.
Who are we
to believe? There are allegations that a foreign nation interfered with the
very basic structure of the democratic process and used social media to
accomplish the task, (DOJ, 2018). We currently have a special prosecutor
investigating possible collusion between a seated President and a foreign
entity. There were some 126 million people that were reached by fake Russian
Facebook accounts during the election process, (The Guardian, 2017) and you can
click
here to see if you interacted with one of these fake accounts during the
2016 election. There is even a television program called Catfish, that deals
tracks social media accounts and the people connected to them to determine if
they are real or if the love interest with the suspicious digital romance is
being Catfished,
(a new word in the dictionary).
People seem
to be losing their ability to interact with each other in person. Why bother
calling to talk when you can check Facebook or send an instant message. A visit
to a local grocery store reaffirmed my observation this week. I thought there
must be a new holiday that I was unaware of called rude and uncouth day.
I think
there is an argument with evidence that social media is slowly dumbing down our
society. Not necessarily taking away intelligence, but creating a world where
fact checking just does not happen. Cyberbullying occurs only because no one is
willing to step forward and tell the truth in many cases. Simple fact checking
and speaking up could save a young person’s life. The sad reality is that most
of the time that doesn’t happen.
Back to the
political side of this post. We have learned that Tweeting is one of the
coolest past times that ever existed. Being truthful, seems to be a thing of
the past and hang on until tomorrow when the next episode of As Our Government
Churns presents an even more unbelievable occurrence than those we have seen
thus far. Why can’t we just talk about the aliens that don’t exist?
Department
of Justice, (2018) Case 1:18-cr-00032-DLF Document 1 Filed 02/16/18. Retrieved
from https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download on May 4, 2018.
The
Guardian, (2017) Russia-backed Facebook posts 'reached 126m Americans' during
US election. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million on May 4, 2018.
History.com,
(2018) This Day in History, Welles Scares Nation. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/welles-scares-nation on May 3, 2018.
