Following a Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville, pictures of rioters rapidly circulated through social media. Immediately after they surfaced, people traced International Protocol addresses and illegally stalked profiles to expose the demonstrators. In the process, people with similar features and names were wrongly accused and verbally attacked with hateful messages.
Social media and networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have impacted how we absorb and understand news. News of natural disasters and political issues propagates throughout social media before reaching traditional news outlets. Whether we realize it or not, social media platforms are undeniably influencing our perceptions of the world.
First, breaking news is commonly found on social media before being broadcasted on television or publicized by newspapers. For example, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing occurred at 11:48 a.m. EST, and the first report of it came via Twitter at 11:50 a.m. EST. However, the Boston Globe reported the incident nearly nine minutes later.
Moreover, the news we see on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat is tailored to our interests and opinions. Because our social media feeds are based on past likes and follows, they prevent us from having a holistic understanding of news. For instance, a social liberal is unlikely to follow Fox News on Twitter, and a conservative would be unlikely to follow MSNBC or CNN. Because we are not exposed to a variety of sources, our perspectives are limited, leaving us either uninformed or misinformed.
Additionally, social media desensitizes people to certain news because trivial reports are often found alongside more significant ones. For example, Snapchat presents collections of videos and pictures from media companies including The New York Times, Buzzfeed and People Magazine. By placing both insignificant reports and critical events on the same social networking platform, people interpret these stories as being of equal consequence. Because we choose what to click on social media, we tend to select the more eye-catching topics such as juicy entertainment gossip. We scroll past the news articles on our feeds, or read only until we lose interest. The outcome? We are left with only the partial truth.
As a result, some people make assumptions based on the incomplete truth they see online, as seen in the Facebook altercations following the Charlottesville riot. Although social media increases transparency, the effects of such transparency can be harmful if citizens act without knowing the entire truth.
Social media platforms now have an unprecedented impact on how we personally perceive news. Overall, we must always be aware that what we see on social media is usually just one perspective of the whole picture. Most importantly, as consumers of social media platforms, we should strive to research all sides of an issue as objectively as possible before jumping to hasty conclusions.