Blaming Social Media for Racism

Helen Horton
hh157115@ohio.edu

In a New York Times article discussing social media sites and their [lack of] regulations toward hate speech, I was browsing the comment section and came across a poignant contribution:

As the comment addressed, social media has been scrutinized like any medium throughout history. The printing press was condemned by the Catholic Church in the Reformation for the information it was publishing, The story is similar today with alt-right and nationalist groups promoting their harmful agendas through the web's many social media channels.

Propaganda in itself comes in many formats, as well. Books, pamphlets, broadcasts, advertisements—all of these have played a role in attempting to persuade people throughout history. The Klu Klux Klan is a notorious 150-year old association that makes their hate for Blacks, Jews, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and Catholics well known. Now groups like the Klan make their presence online, which has the possibility to attract new recruits through their Twitter page or Instagram Stories.

Because social media allows users to personalize nearly everything, the language used by these hate groups is critical, as pointed out in a Poynter article on reporting terror speech by journalists. Within that article, they also ask us to look at the images/videos they may use to describe an event. If a video only shows black people throwing punches, when every other source shows the KKK inciting the brawl, is that even then accurately reflected. No way. These tactics allow breeders of hate speech to grow heir online presence so rapidly.

Additionally, people tend to become more bold and brash when their identity is hidden behind a screen. The lack of face to face interaction has caused a sort of hostility that has made social media into the dog-eat-dog world it is today. A toxic, screen-driven world leads to the rapid spread of potentially harmful and ill-fated messages.

Overall, I think politics and the notion of free speech has complicated the world of social media recklessly, something that I don't think the original social media pioneers troubleshot for. I grew up in the age of AIM, Webkinz, and Club Penguin. Those sites regulated speech, but only because they were sites with tweens as their audience, not a breeding ground for nationalist Republican politicians.

Source: Pew Research Center

Today's society lives online, which means that our thoughts transfer there too. The above statistics conducted by Pew indicates that while nationalism is out there, people are also recognizing that it is a racist problem as well.

The discussion around racism has shifted in the last couple of years too, I believe thanks to the rise of white men playing the terrorist in American society. 9/11 and the Bush administration saw an era of Muslim and Arab populations being wrongly accused for terroristic language and ideas, until Sandy Hook, Aurora, Parkland, Charlottesville... shall I go on? Yet no matter the race, Americans still believe that fighting terrorism is an important priority [and has been since 2002].

All in all, I think that like any other medium of its era, social media can amplify the ideas of the people, but at an undetermined cost. Social media's screen-only interaction, instant gratification thanks to notifications, and ability to choose a niche set of influencers to follow creates a breeding ground for hate speech.