As Election Day rapidly -- and unfortunately-- approaches, tensions between Trump and Clinton supporters are intensifying to merciless degrees. Facebook and Twitter feeds are congested with malicious comment warfare in which there are never any obvious winners; just losers and more losers. Some of us however, choose to refrain from vocalizing any semblance of our political ideologies online. We instead, sit idly by and watch the pandemonium unfold before our very eyes, often times twitching to correct an erroneous claim, sometimes just a few clicks away from unfriending an insensitive, ill-informed relative or old high school classmate. While I won't attempt to persuade anyone to vote for one candidate or the other --it doesn't matter in this specific instance-- I will encourage anyone who uses social media to voice their political opinions to PLEASE do us all a favor and abide by these 5 unwritten rules.
1. Actually Read the Article You Shared
It is absolutely infuriating that I even have to say this, but according to a 2016 article by the Washington Post, approximately 6 out of 10 people share an article without reading it. That means nearly 60% of the articles circulating the Internet are shared based off of their title alone. And, why is this such a problem? People are not only shaping their political preferences based on often times one-sentence headlines, but these articles are then oscillating within like-minded communities so as to facilitate the same ideas. You share an article titled "Hillary is a Baby Murderer" so your Hillary-hating Facebook friends are going to share it without reading it, too. And, while these sorts of headlines work effectively to grasp a person's attention, they don't always give the most accurate summary of the article, that's not their job. You, as a reader, are obligated to investigate the claim and adjust your opinion accordingly. You might even find out it was a satirical article written by a Hillary supporter and save yourself both embarrassment and criticism from your liberal friends by not sharing it.
This idea of sharing without reading is a vicious cycle that suggests carelessness and ignorance is a justifiable way to construct and exchange political opinions. You wouldn't buy groceries for your family without inspecting the ingredients labels, so why would you share an article without reading it? (Plus, if you read the article, you might actually learn something!)
2. Fact Check
Fact checking is an essential task that anyone who uses social media must perform on a regular basis however, it becomes increasingly more important when politics are involved. Facebook users, for example, will encounter an influx of information during election cycles, most of which is biased or just outwardly incorrect. Too often, people will rush to share articles containing sensational titles without checking the credibility of the source or the accuracy of the information. We, as avid social media participants, know this is problematic for a couple of reasons: 1. Some "news" sites are either biased or just straight up satirical and/or fake and 2. Sometimes even the most credible news outlets make mistakes while they are racing to get their stories up before their competitors.
You must take the extra thirty seconds to double check with another credible source to ensure you are getting the most accurate information, especially if the information is suspicious or biased. You do this with real people in your everyday lives when you suspect they are being deceitful, so the skill is already refined.
3. Quit Getting Your "News" From Sensational Sites
The Onion, Globe Magazine, and National Enquirer are NOT credible news outlets! They're not even news outlets! Their sole purpose is entertainment and their existence hinges on people's inability to distinguish them from actual news sources. Just a couple weeks ago a Facebook friend shared an obviously fake article about Donald Trump passing away from cardiac arrest. I laughed to myself thinking this friend had to be sharing it ironically, but I was sadly mistaken. She not only shared the post, but she urged her Facebook community to withhold insensitive remarks and sent prayers to Donald Trump's family.
If you are going to post anything politically oriented on the Internet for the whole world to see, please, please, please save yourself some embarrassment and read real news. I know sometimes that New York Times article isn't sexy, nor juiced up with scandal, but you owe it to yourself and the rest of us to make an informed political opinion based on factual news. If you're relying on sensationalism to shape your political orientation, please refrain from tainting us, your mostly loving Facebook friends, with your distorted perception of politics.
4. Grow Up
Social media is a great outlet for people to engage in political discourse, however it is very rarely ever successful. People are often close-minded and brutally offensive when trying to debate with someone of the opposite political party. Disagreement is healthy; it's necessary to gain perspectives different from your own, but we have somehow, somewhere, lost the art of respectful discussion. It's important to keep in mind that vulgarity and excessive profanity prove quite obviously that you aren't mature enough to engage in civil disagreement. You can challenge someone's opinion without calling them a fucking idiot, threatening to burn their house down, or exiling them to Hell. (Do you even have the authority to do that?) We won't think you support your candidate any less if you neglect to include half a dozen f-bombs when grilling your decrepit Aunt Lucy. Everyone prefers a good, clean, family-friendly political debate anyways, right?
5. Proofread Your Post
Perhaps this is just a personal preference, but spelling and grammar are often indicators of a person's reliability and intelligence. Before you judge me for seeming pretentious, hear me out: There is a reason that credible news outlets are edited for spelling and grammar; it provides credibility and it assures you that the information written is being validated. I'm not suggesting you are dumb if you cannot spell, and I'm certainly not picking on people who misuse a form of "to/too/two" or misspell something every now and again. However, if your Facebook post is riddled with careless misspellings so obscure that they need to be interpreted by an Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics translator, I cannot trust what you have to say. You either 1. didn't double check to make sure what you were saying was true or made sense, or 2. You knew what your post looked like and didn't care. And, if you don't care, why should I? In either case, you have probably haphazardly constructed a Facebook status fueled by passion and cannot rest until your opinion has infiltrated the online world. I get it, your passions cannot and will not be stifled by someone's desire to maintain social custom, but if you can't take 10 seconds to proofread a post for spelling errors, then I automatically assume you haven't been checking the sources of your political opinions for factual errors.
I hope people take these 5 "rules" into consideration before drafting their next novella-esque Facebook statuses or nasty Twitter comments. I realize nobody has to listen to me, I am just a chump with a laptop and a burning desire for order and stability in the online political battlefield. But, I hope many others agree that this bizarre election is already out of control, and people's insensitive and close-minded attitudes combined with their unwillingness to seek the truth are only making things worse.
