In this week’s class, we read six articles, watches three videos, and listened to one podcast. At the beginning of class this week we heard from Group 1, they presented the book, Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: Disruptive Innovation in the Age of the Internet. They did a very nice presentation and very in-depth. The main topic for this week was looking at cancel culture. “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” While the internet is something we use to express ourselves and share our thoughts it is also a gateway to hate and bullying. If people see something they do not like they then speak out and share it hopes other people share their views and this can lead to public shaming. “This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.” Social media can be used for good, but most times the good outways the bad as certain people who are facing this hatred can not take random people saying vulgar things. This has lead to the loss of life and the loss of families. People rarely think before they post and end up hurting others with their words. Have you posted something you wish you didn’t?

Now let’s take a look at the good side, what does it do and what does it accomplish? “Although the hubbub of comment threads and Twitter timelines might seem to contain a wide variety of opinion, the researchers suggest that internet users tend to clump together with like-minded individuals (a tendency that internet experts have previously suggested is reinforced by online search algorithms that cater to our views).” While we tend to look at the bad parts and what social media doesn’t do well, there are things we are lucky to have. Take communication, for example, years ago you had to write letters to people you wanted to stay in touch with now you can write a quick text and talk to your friends. Social media also offers us the chance to post photos and show people how you have changed or show have you have bettered yourself. Mean comments are everywhere on the internet, but people tend to focus on the bad things rather than the good people post. Social media groups people with like interests together so hate is not something we see, but more so something we look for. Instead of caring what good people may be posting, we look for the bad and what we can do about it. “Perhaps more alarmingly, the researchers found that social media use also had a knock-on effect on real-life conversations: frequent Facebook and Twitter users were less likely to share their opinions even in face-to-face discusions when they felt their online friends hadn’t agreed with their view point.” From the ‘Spiral of Silence’ we can see that even though people know their opinions are not well-viewed they still post about it as it is their right to freedom of speech. We have a right to let people know our opinions whether other people with finding them agreeable doesn’t matter, what matters is if it’s our true opinion and we personally believe it. Rather than focusing on hate we should not be afraid to share our views as everyone has a different view, this doesn’t mean our thoughts are more important, but that if people can’t share their thoughts without fear of hate than why are we on social media, to begin with? 

Have you been subjected to hate? Have you judged another person for sharing their viewpoint? Do you like social media?