Propaganda is nothing new; it has appeared in pamphlets, books, and newspapers practically since the invention of the printing press. But social media seems particularly susceptible to spreading disinformation.
Opinions and rumors on social media spread like wildfire, now becoming more and more enflamed with each political action. People love to comment on political decisions and actions when they have no idea what they are talking about. They clog up Twitter homepages and their Snapchat stories with commentary most people would like to avoid. It’s okay if one shares their opinions as that is an established right in the constitution, but seeing them every day can be a little annoying.
People seem to have opinions on events that might occur far in the future or might not happen at all. The problem with that is they seem to talk about the events as if the occurrence is confirmed. They take events that have happened and create their own dream board on what should happen next. They share everything like an open book, but as soon as someone disagrees with them, they act like they have a right to be offended. It seems as if they exercise their freedom of speech but pay no mind to the fact that everyone has that right, whether they share the same opinions or not.
According to the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of Americans received at least some of their news from social media in 2018. Both mainstream politicians and extremist groups use Facebook and Twitter to spread information. Applied to politics, people bury discussion about civic action under endless streams of text, images, and video.
People need to be educated about what they are sharing opinions about instead of jumping on the bandwagon of everyone else’s. Back up the opinions with statistics or other data. They must also be open to listening to other sides of an argument because having a viewpoint of all sides can further educate someone on the topic. Simply, people should let CNN and other credible news shows spread the word.