"People shared outrageous ideas that I'd never heard before, some just plausible enough to get under my skin."
When my aunt was actively on Twitter and Reddit in 2020, she originally used it to look up how to fix things or different recipes. But what she didn't know was how formulaic it had gotten in only a few months.
It started with minor political posts, ads for politicians and whatnot. It was an election year so she wasn't surprised. It's increase, however, was gradual. She can't vividly remember when exactly she became obsessed with politics, but I think it was during the Covid lockdown when nobody knew anything.
She said that eventually people were sharing ideas about the virus that should've been outrageous, but because she was becoming distrustful of traditional media, it was plausible enough to get under her skin.
From then it was radical idea after radical idea to the point where she wholeheartedly believed that the Covid-19 vaccine had a microchip that tracked you. It was then that my family had intervened to explain the algorithm and how she was stuck in it.
While some look to blame the isolation from the pandemic as the root problem of believing propaganda on social media, it serves more as a catalyst. The real issue is the unspoken data industry and surveillance capitalism, and many don’t care.
To put it into perspective, surveillance capitalism is defined by Harvard University professor and author Shoshana Zuboff as the practice of collecting and selling data about people’s activities, whether physical or online. This data is used by other companies for targeting marketing and advertising to improve their sales.
Now this seems like something to be reasonably apathetic about, right? Sometimes, people like their ads to be more personalized so they can see more things that they're interested in. That should be the extent of surveillance capitalism, but unfortunately it isn’t.
During the 2024 election, surveillance capitalism is used not only to push products, but to sway voters as well. Through propaganda propagation, these algorithms raise critical questions about privacy, democracy, and this manipulation of voter outcomes through strategies based on their data.
According to Vox, social media isn't all to blame
Vox writer Sean Illing discusses how Fox along with other mainstream new sources like The New York Times or Washington Post contribute to mass waves of conspiracies and misinformation that leads viewers to mainly distrust these traditional sources. This, in hand, leads people to turn to social media as a more reliable source of news and information. When they see this bias in mainstream sources, they look at social media as more transparent with personal experiences and peer to peer communication.
How does this algorithm specifically work?
Take Facebook/Meta for example. They collect data from interactions including likes, comments, shares, and even time spent on content. This data is analyzed through algorithms that create a detailed profile that predicts their political preferences. They then use this to push misinformation of an agreed radical idea that garners engagement. Now this is good for social media, the more the engagement, the larger the user base, the higher the profit. But is this good for America? The statistics say no.
Now how do these algorithms affect us?
According to Pew Research, our animosity towards our fellow Americans have gone down. With social media putting identity politics into play, we’re more polarized than ever as we deem the members of the opposite political party as someone inferior to ourselves. When it comes to being neighborly, we as Americans are less likely to get along with our political counterparts by a substantial amount.
FUD and how it divides us
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) has much prominence in the 2024 election. It's defined by Master Brand Developer Richard Czerniawski as correlating with oppositioning, or making a campaign that identifies weakness of the competitor rather than strengths of ones own.
Oppositioning and FUD have their shortcomings. It solidifies their supporters while solidifying their opponents as well. It shuts off some of the market they're trying to persuade.
In the political world, this leads to a great divide, as supporters of a political party may develop hate to anyone even adjacent of the other. Social media, with it's algorithm geared towards solely engagement and profit, becomes a tool for politicians to create trends that play with your emotions. It sucks you into a disillusioned bubble that makes you focus on those perceived threats of the opposing side.
It'll be ok though, the solution starts with you
You're not really stuck, you only are if you don't recognize that there's a problem. When you spend more time glued to what's inside of your phone instead of what's outside, that's when it becomes your world. That world is heavily controlled, and if you'd like that to change it starts with who you talk to.
Go talk to your family and friends, especially those with different opinions. Go in with an open and curious mind, and learn from their experiences.
Also do some independent research. While the internet is home to a lot of misinformation, it's also full of good insight. Make sure sources are reliable and their organization centers around integrity and trust. You can even find multiple sources of the same story to see what correlates.
Finally, understand that what's on the internet doesn't reflect what's in the real world. You may see dozens of radical takes on politics, bantering with someone else or even posting their own misinformation. You need to take that with a grain of salt, as what you see is purposely designed for you to react.
If you walk through life like this, you'll overcome the anxieties that have been instilled through too much information. You'll be certain about your decision's and feel like you're authentically thinking for yourself.
Credits:
Created with images by • vichie81 - US Capitol Building • fivepointsix - Empty streets of Cape town, South Africa during the lock down, with warning sign. • littlewolf1989 - Happy family siting on grass in the park enjoying sunset.