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Facebook, politics and internet sensationalism

I am not the type of person who lives by a set of hard rules. I enjoy being spontaneous and exploring new things. That said, I have one very strict rule regarding social media. Simply put, I never post or share anything serious on social media. By serious, I mean anything pertaining to a controversial or potentially contentious issue. I never back down from commenting on a controversial Facebook post because I feel that it is necessary to challenge people’s need to share cursory and potentially sensitive information, but I am never the original poster. The topic ofinternet activism—orslacktivism—has been covered heremanytimesbefore, criticized for being lazy and ineffective, but that’s not what I’m doing. I made this rule for myself because of two key observations that I have made about the online world. The first is that social media, like many aspects of the internet, is rarely ever a medium for constructive discourse. Rather, it is an ideological vacuum where similar people congregate and feed off of one another’s opinions, pushing opinions to polarization. The second reason is that social media is, by nature, a medium cultivated by short attention spans and instant gratification. The effort required to read or share a post is so minimal that the meaningful research necessary to have informed opinions rarely happens. Instead, faulty information that catches the eye is immediately propagated to every man, woman and child with access to a computer screen.

A few months ago, I broke this rule for the first time in a while. Sitting on my couch on a Wednesday night, I decided to watch a documentary on YouTube, already a poor choice of information gathering. Without mentioning the name of the movie, it is fair to say that it prompted the exact sort of emotional rise that these types of films are meant to provoke. I was so heated that I had to get this message out to the world for people to see the truth! I fell into the trap that so many internet users fall into today, convincing myself that posting a link on Facebook would bring meaningful change. Not but one hour later, after I had cooled off, I began reading reviews of the film as well as the court cases and issues covered in the documentary. As you might expect, the issue was not as black and white as it was painted to be. I went back and checked my post to find that a friend had liked it. I immediately deleted the post and messaged him, apologizing for dragging him into political sensationalism through my momentary lapse of self-control.

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Tangible evidence for any argument takes extensive research and effort. The minimal-effort nature of social media makes it the perfect medium for sensationalism, political extremism and distortion of fact. Twitter goes so far as to limit a user to 140 characters. Using Twitter to pedal political ideology is the most nonsensical way of trying to influence public opinion. If you support gender equality, that is a legitimate fight to undertake. But, for God’s sake, don’t choose Twitter as your medium for change. It’s as if somebody told you to write a research paper on gender equality, but limited the final draft to the size of sticky note.

An equally dangerous result of the minimal-effort nature of the internet is the spreading of faulty information. Ravie Somaiya’s article, “If a Story is Viral, Truth May be Taking a Beating,” which appeared in The New York Times in December 2013, details countless viral stories in recent years that were completely fictitious, but were shared in the name of truth because internet users don’t have the motivation to check the facts. Studies have suggested that children tend to trust written information more than spoken information. Scientists attribute this to the fact that children put so much effort into learning to read that naturally it carries a more authoritative edge. I think that written information has always had an air of validity to it purely because it traditionally required so much more effort to produce. Well, with the rapid growth of the information age, information reigns king, while truth has become extraneous.

One of the best quotes I’ve heard in a while is: “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” The concept is an old one, but is articulated well here by programmer Alberto Brandolini, who cleverly labels this the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle. Ironically, I saw this quote on a viral image, so it’s wrong of me to discredit virality and social media altogether. Twitter serves as a great source of immediate news coverage from around the world, and some viral photos like the one I referenced above can be funny, entertaining, or even mildly informative. However, it is important to recognize the limited available information inherent to such a form of information sharing. I recognize that it is unreasonable to completely eliminate impulsive internet sharing. So instead, I’ll advocate skepticism. Next time you see a picture or story that infuriates you or excites you, resist for a moment the urge to click the like button or to retweet the link. Instead, open up a new tab and Google it, read about it, think about it for a moment more and consider the repercussions of supporting those very short 140 characters.

ChristianWawrzonek is a computer science major from Pittsburgh, Pa. He can be reached atcjw5@princeton.edu.

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