Is Social Media Polarizing The Society? How?

KAKALI DAS

According to Charles Darwin, we are relatives of monkeys.

However, among us also exist wolves who mislead and attack on sheep. Even though we sit at the top of the evolution tree, but many a times we act stupidly, especially at the social level. It is said that man is a social animal; our ancestors too liked living in communities.

And due to these community associations, there used to be differences amongst each other for various reasons. And these very differences created the concept of ‘Us Vs Them,’ that lead to all sorts of wars. With the human’s evolution, societies too evolved.

With evolution came gadgets like the smartphone with social media apps in it. As a result, the humans, eventually, metamorphosed into the ‘social media animal.’ Slowly, the feeling of US versus THEM grew even stronger due to the advent of social media.

Now, what is social media polarization? What are its effects on our politics and democracy?

It is important to understand how social media apps like Facebook, Twitter take benefit of hatred.

In 2003-04, when social media apps like Friendster, Myspace, Facebook came into existence, the goal of these sites was connectivity – helping people connect and stay friends online. People loved sharing songs, movies, books that they watched or read, innocent posts, making new friends. There was no room for arguments and politics.

Then in 2009, Facebook and Twitter introduced ‘Like’ and ‘Retweet buttons, respectively. With this a concept of ‘reward’ and ‘punishment’ started. Today, the creator of retweet button regrets it, as the feature has widely been misused. He said, “We handed a loaded weapon to 4-Year-Olds.”

black android smartphone — Photo by Alok Sharma on Pexels.com

Social media is now a popularity contest. Users compare likes and followers. Arguments too began on topics related and unrelated. It became a fashion to troll random strangers. It created anxiety or boosted ego, and people wondered why! The users behaved like gladiators online to cause mental wounds to strangers.

So, the objective with which the social media was created – to connect people from across the world, build a discourse among them, or benefit them in any way possible – that got lost in the way. Echo chambers of opinions, like communities, emerged. It led to digital divide and a feeling of US versus THEM. So, now, the algorithm shows you what you want to see. In short, you’re limited by the boundaries of the bubble you’re in. So, social media has no real impact on ground.

Moreover, the algorithm comes in a way, and we understand it very little, unfortunately. Earlier, one could see what friends are doing in a chronological manner, but now social media platforms follow advertising model. For more Ads revenue, more traffic is needed, and so social media sites require you spend time there. So, sites want more engagement, longer watch hours, etc.

And, hence, the algorithm was eventually altered. Posts that trigger emotionally are shown first. This trick makes the users to react more. Users, too, started to create such posts more so that they can get people to engage and react more. In this particular manner, the starting point of connectivity, showing off likes and hobbies changed to getting more outrage, reactions.

Is Social Media Polarizing The Society — Photo by Lisa on Pexels.com

Have you ever wondered if these social media companies can stop the spread hateful posts? – Definitely! It can entirely be stopped in an hour. If you ever use an official song on your video, these platforms will put a strike on them. Artificial intelligence tracks that, and can similarly stop any other unethical use of social media.

But, if this AI is used in curbing hateful posts, it would stop the traffic and ad revenue and would affect the billionaires. So, Mark Zuckerberg and his team are seldom interested in curtailing the spread of hatred in their platforms.

Facebook Papers reveal the scope of social media polarisation. In Sep, 2021, Wallstreet released series of articles exposing Facebook. This is based on internal documents leaked by an ex-employee, Francis Haogen, that are simply named ‘Facebook Papers’ by the media.

These papers exposed Facebook such as – it circulates those posts more that are controversial, that angers people and lead to fights in comments.

In 2015, Facebook introduced reaction options or emoticons– love, haha, yay, wow, sad, angry. Those with angry posts were promoted more because as per reports such posts have 5 time more engagement. People spend more time and hence, benefit Facebook. The Week wrote, “Facebook reportedly gave the ‘angry’ emoji 5 times as much weight as a ‘like’.”

Facebook data scientists by 2019 determined that the posts that earn angry emojis were more likely to include misinformation, toxicity, and low quality news.

In 2019, Facebook conducted a study creating a dummy account to see what new is suggested to that account. Within 3 weeks, it was found that the feed of the dummy user was flooded with doctored images, fake news and violent scenes.

In fact, the Facebook management knew about the hate speech against minorities in India, but it turned a blind eye to these anti-Muslim hate speech and propaganda in India. In fact, the Facebook India Policy head, Ankhi Das told employees that if they punish the ruling party’s social media violations then that would not be good for the business.

In other words, let the ruling party supporters spread fake new and hate, no matter the repercussions! Similarly, Facebook bowed to the Vietnam government’s censorship demands. Someone writing against the government was censored. On the outside, social media might seem democratic but, now, because of social media the democracies might get in danger.

According to a Greek philosopher, Plato: Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy and the most aggravated form of tyranny. Many crisis emerges in democracies, be it corruption, nepotism, financial crisis, natural disasters etc. But in these times of confusion, a person might appear as a saviour and play with people’s emotions.

Some people might even advocate for dictatorship – if they can be foolish enough to believe that our independence is on lease (pun intended).

Yes, there are reasonable people on the ground too, but the problem is – the loudspeakers on social media are on the hands of those with extremist viewpoints, which, in turn is dividing the society further. Reasonable voices are discouraged – speaking or writing facts is unwelcomed, as it has less engagement.

So, there is less and less scope for genuine information, which is disastrous for democracy.

Social media is becoming a hub of disagreements. But we cannot completely write social media off. Not all are destructive in these platforms. Like in the pandemic, people helped each other on the social media. They turned to social media for help as covid-19 crisis overwhelmed the health-care system. We find lost, bygone friends on social media, some even find their companions, like on Facebook, Twitter etc.

Besides, in many democracies, social media is considered as the sole platform where people can question the system under anonymity. Hence, all isn’t bad in these platforms. But it needs improvement and understanding that social media can benefit by polarizing its audience.

New platforms are working to correct it – like discontinuing the dislike button, to make a mechanism that will enable authenticity. Regular offenders need to be banned.

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