Social Media

 

Social Media

          Social media has continued to become a growing influence in many people's lives. With almost half of the world's population using social media in some capacity, it puts to question how much power these companies are allowed to have (Source). Notably, Facebook having as big of a user base as it does, is it okay for them to be able to spread misinformation whether it's unwilling or not. 

These companies have a massive influence on the way that people view topics. While I'm not saying we should censor everything, I do believe there should be some more moderation when misinformation starts to become dangerous.  When misinformation spread from these platforms starts to impact elections, people's mental health, and the public's willingness to get important vaccines, I think it becomes more than a freedom of speech issue. I think it starts to become a public safety issue. I believe that we need to put more pressure on companies to develop some sort of method to prevent dangerous misinformation.

While some of the blame falls on people not doing basic research or just reading the headline to get news. I believe that a lot more of it falls on these companies, like Facebook, for the content they choose to show to their userbase. Because social media is so big and has us all more connected than ever, rumors and misinformation like this spread far and wide and become hard to clear up. We should, as social media users, become more aware of this misinformation and be more cautious when browsing through these sites.