After learning about varying political ideologies (and how it is not so simple as "Democrat" and "Republican"), I wanted to look more into why our current political climate has become so polarized. One tool that has completely changed politics today is social media. Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, to name a few, are used as platforms to express political beliefs as well as news. We have already learned about how fake news can easily and dangerously spread false ideas, but I think that it can be especially detrimental when it involves politics. Not only can it spur social conflict, but it can also skew the way a certain issue or political person is represented and mislead people. This was prevalent in the 2016 Presidential election, as both President Trump and Hilary Clinton were discussed frequently on social media through tweets and memes. Also, it only takes one person to spread an idea, regardless of whether it is inaccurate or not. Especially if people in the public eye express their opinion about a certain issue, their statements will either influence people or cause waves of controversy. But what is quite ironic is that while people avidly express their opinions on social media, the political climate has made it so that any statement that goes against the majority opinion will immediately receive backlash and criticism. Some feel that they are "walking on eggshells" when they say their opinions. This has contributed to a lack of a middle ground between parties, as people who have more radical opinions will tend to post them, while others who lie somewhere in the middle are in the background. What do you guys think? Social media is an important tool, but do you think its cons outweigh its benefits when it comes to political statements?
Source:
https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/danger-social
I completely agree that social media can be extremely detrimental to politics. I think that a good example of how social media negatively affects politics is through Trump's tweets. Trump currently has over 66 million followers on Twitter and posts fake news almost every single day in order to gain support or disguise an issue from the public. When it comes to politics I think that people should use actually news sources that are much more trustworthy than social media where basically anything can be said and spread.
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