The Battle For Public Opinion

These days, we have access to a lot of information online and it can be very dangerous when it comes to forming opinions based in fact versus fiction. This prompt reminded me of a study mentioned in one of our chapter readings for the week that spoke of how people mainly shared posts on Facebook that confirmed their own prejudices, instead of focusing on accuracy of information. Social media can be an echo chamber, meaning that we can see and hear our own thoughts reflected back to us and then believe them even more to be truth. A sort of mob mentality starts to form and we do not stop to take information or opinion with a grain of salt. 

A successful and very viral online campaign I immediately think of is the Me Too movement. This movement used a hashtag to immobilize people especially women to speak out against their oppressors and share their experiences. It exposed many influential figures and made them be held accountable. This campaign used the power of how interconnected we are on social media platforms to spread a message and fight for social justice. 

Ethical considerations to mull over include making sure information is accurate. In research I conducted for my artificial intelligence speech, I was quite scared of how good AI is at creating fake but believable images. It's important to fact check information as well as not post simply to confirm your own biases, as mentioned previously. We also need to think about whether posting about relevant social justice issues can be more damaging then good. I think about how sharing videos of gun violence although do raise awareness in a sense, can also be very triggering or on the other hand desensitize people to something very awful. It is always good to have a conversation with yourself about what kind of media you should post to make sure you are advocating but not traumatizing. Here is a link to an article I found that discusses how social media can actually play a role in exacerbating gun violence.