Social Media has a huge influence on politics

Kate Anderson

Ka668316@ohio.edu

There are over 500 million tweets shared per day. In addition, Facebook users post over 350 million photos a day. The mass amount of information and misinformation that is shared daily is enormous. With this amount of posts a day, social media can influence millions of people. One area that has seen a massive impact from social media influence is politics. 

Facebook released a study in 2010 that proved that posts made on social media sites did, in fact, influence elections. The spread of information is so easy on social media. Still, the excess amount of information makes it harder to decipher misinformation and fake news. The spread of false information can form into attacks of political figures based purely on lies. We can see this with the case of Vise President Kamala Harris. Lies about her were spread across social media, stemming from one false opinionated statement.  

Courtesy of evergreen.greenhill.org

All of the information on social media does make it hard for users and voters to decide what is real and what is fake. It can also make it harder for social media users to trust honest reporters and news stations producing real, factual news. 

According to an article by the Hill, "clicks, ratings, and subscriptions are all up, but so are allegations of bias, social media pressures and questions about the news media's integrity." People are interacting with, seeing, and being exposed to more news than they ever have before, questioning what they are seeing. Even differently, politically leaning news stations are attacking one another. This fact also adds to mistrust of the media. 

In an article, Jonathan Tasini said, "the biggest threat is the baked-in ideological bias that leads to traditional media outlets repeating misinformation and lies, which leads to things like the Iraq War, the phony government deficit hysteria and the pimping for so called 'free trade' and that deep bias hurts progressive views and candidates like Bernie Sanders just as much if not more." 

All of this impacts sharing information on social media and politics in the United States. Social media has forced political ads, campaigns, and news coverage to be cautious and intelligent while using social media to promote themselves. Political leaders need to be aware of false news, votes, and citizens. It is essential to take note of the information and double-check if it is true or not.