Viral Does not Always Mean True

Jacob Motta

jm186818@ohio.edu

 

In America, we tend to take anything we see on the internet as true, no matter what the circumstances are. The main way most young people get their news is through social media apps, the main one, being Twitter. 

We see viral videos, and viral photos every day, and share them with our friends and family. People in society do not research these pictures or videos before sharing them because most think, well if it is on the internet, it has to be true. The issue with this is that oftentimes there are multiple videos or pictures from the same event, that tell a completely different story. 

In an article published by The Atlantic on the Nick Sandmann case, the author talks about the short viral video, which showed a group of high schoolers at a March for Life event in Washington, D.C., and one student wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat is portrayed to be, "Intimidating the tribal elder in the original video" referring to a group of Native Americans. Everyone had assumed that the high school junior was mocking an elder from the tribe that had seen the video, because that is the only context that was shown by news, and media organizations. If the entire video had been shown, people would have seen that the boy had slurs shouted at him because of the hat that he was wearing, and in another video that shows more of the altercation, it does not seem as if he is smirking at the elder in order to disrespect him. 

The point is not to say who is right and who is wrong, the point is that a situation like this can be twisted and turned into multiple different stories in order to manipulate people into believing something. We as American people should double check the news that we decide to spread, and always use trusted, unbiased organizations to figure out what is right. 

In an article published by Pew Research Center it reads, "A Median of only 52% across the 38 nations polled say the news media in their county do a good job of reporting on political issues fairly, while 44% say they do not." While the issue is not only with political news, it is still a big part of the, "fake", or biased news that is presented to the American people. 

Society needs to learn that not everything you read on the internet is true, and that whether the news is political, informational, or just for pure entertainment, it can be biased or fake. Viral videos and photos plague the American people with information that is false or misinterpreted, and that divides us as a society. It makes us turn against each other, and sometimes it can make us turn against even the people that we care about the most. Checking unbiased organizations can fix many social media altercations, as well as, in person altercations between people who just don't have the full story.