Social Media, Politics, and Confirmation Bias

Social media has drastically affected the day-to-day lives of people from across the globe, from spreading information to raising awareness of certain causes. However, there are faults that lie within social media platforms, and I believe that our generation should be responsible for maintaining the integrity of information that spreads through social media, whether it be through reporting posts or questioning aspects of posts. We need to ask more questions, and stop accepting things as "truthful" from the moment we see them. Confirmation bias is a significant issue when it comes to discerning between false and true information, and when dealing with politically-inspired posts, it can become even more difficult for some to filter information that may be false yet complements a particular belief.

Furthermore, I believe that content creators are responsible for ensuring that the experience of social media is as honest as possible for its users; certain social media platforms such as Facebook have algorithms that can calculate the highest interests of its users, leading to greater returning users. While this may be beneficial for Facebook––whose objective is to retain its users and maximize its number of users––there are inherent flaws that must be addressed. Exposing users to the same perspective of information, especially in politics, can lead to a narrow point of view on a topic (which may not be representative of an entire topic at hand), and it creates a competition between media-producing corporations. Information in social media platforms has turned into the subject of this competition––the company that can present information in the most interesting and sometimes controversial manner wins despite the honesty of its products' contents.