This semester, I have been taking English 303: Reading Social Media. The curriculum has tackled what exactly social media is, what it appeal is to us as human beings, dissecting internet cultures such as memes and public shaming, along with the negative correlation between social media and well-being. Of course, all of these concepts within social media are relevant and consequential, but none struck me as poignantly as the weaponization of social media. In listening to a National Public Radio podcast, I was given a rude awakening as to how truly powerful the Internet can be.
It is becoming increasingly clear that social media, although designed for humans to keep in touch with one another on more accessible platforms, is not being used for its original intent. A more accurate way of phrasing this, which many tend to cite as the purpose of social media, is that we are more “connected”. However, connected is a subjective term in that the only true connection we are sharing online is that of the Internet. Because of its anonymity, social media is difficult to trust. This is widely apparent in the concept of the weaponization of social media, which is essentially the use of social media to influence public opinion at a governmental level. A chief example to demonstrate this is the ISIS invasion of Iraq. According to Emerson Booking in the interview “The ‘Weaponization’ of Social Media – And Its Real-World Consequences”, “…they broadcast their offensive…They wanted everyone to know about it. You had legions of fans and botnets on Twitter that coalesced around a hashtag, #AllEyesOnISIS…quickly became a topic of global conversation. And that contributed to the contagion of fear that swept through Mosul and led to something like 30,000 defenders repeating and leaving much of their equipment…”. This instance is only one of many in which the aforementioned “botnets”, or fake accounts controlled by robots take advantage of Twitter algorithms and publicize a desired opinion through likes, retweets, and shares.
This particular concept is interesting to me because as a recent social mediaphobe (if you will), I feel that much of social media’s negative effects do not stir intense concern in the public, mainly because there’s no apparent catastrophic element, but this…this is serious. This is clear, inarguable evidence that social media has grown from connecting us to interfering with public policy, war, and democracy — things much larger and beyond our control.
The NPR podcast does not give much advice in terms of how to spot bots or becoming keen in terms of knowing when you’re being implicitly manipulated online, so it’s hard to stop this terribly damaging phenomenon. My main tip is to stay aware of the content you’re posting/sharing online.