I have a love hate relationship with social media. It’s addictive, entertaining, and exposes me to a plethora of information that I would normally never know about. It’s also extremely powerful at rallying people behind a movement or event (which is awesome, especially in one of the largest cases: the Women’s March, which spread worldwide). On average I scroll past hundreds of articles and videos and events on every topic imaginable. It can be overwhelming, but I’m grateful to live in an age where so much information is just a click away.

However, there’s a new mindset that has taken hold of the modern generation. Whether it preceded social media, or was created by social media manipulation, I really can’t say, but it bothers me. News articles, videos, and events are titled with the intention of getting viewers to read them- so that means that their titles and message tend to be very biased towards being controversial. The message that they send out are so clearly manipulative in getting the reader to believe that what they’re saying is the truth. And once enough people are enraged by an event, then the story that was sent out is the ‘truth.' Rarely is the other side of a story researched or written.

This is evident with the most recent case of the United Airlines controversy. Through the sharing of the very graphic and disturbing video, United Airlines has become the target of blind sharing and belief in the most controversial side of a story. I watched the video and read the articles too, and was equally disturbed and horrified at the event. But then I came across an article written by a pilot’s wife. (Take a read here: https://thepilotwifelife.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/...) She gave the other side of this story: the side that wasn’t told, the side that is based on factual evidence and research, the side that didn’t have the prerogative of getting the most readers or viewers possible. After reading it, I realized that once again I had been manipulated through social media in being enraged and mad because of the selective facts and stories that had been shared and told on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. People were posting about it- how it was just another example of Trump America, how United Airlines was horrible for causing this- and I had bought it. There was no way for me to have known about Federal law regarding airlines, the ‘must ride’ policy, or any of the other information provided in the article above. But the original story should have presented it. The large news publishers who wrote about the event should have done that research (it’s kind of their job). The videos were graphic and horrible, and it shouldn’t have happened, but by the way that everyone on social media was presenting it, it had seemed as if it was a racist action taken by a heartless airliner, not an unfortunate and horrible event. And that’s not to say it necessarily wasn’t, but it seems to be not as black and white as presented. Which brings me back to my main point about social media. This event isn’t the only one of its kind in the sense that people continually are getting enraged by the manipulation of a one-sided story distributed by the media. It’s a smart tactic. In this day and age, the world is so politicized and divided on so many issues. Manipulating events to make them seem as if they were some big controversial event results in an increase in readers and profits, which is what publishers want. But more people should be looking to the other side of the story more often.

This type of social-media-perpetuated-news has been broadly titled as ‘fake news.’ It’s this new phenomenon where news no longer has the purpose of reporting what’s actually happened, but reporting the news that will make people the most ‘mad,’ even if that means leaving out key facts (or even fabricating facts). It’s impossible to completely eradicate biases when writing, but it’s disappointing to see it so intentionally happening over and over again. It makes me not trust what I’m reading or seeing, which makes me appear as passive and ignorant towards modern social movement fads. I’m a supporter of getting ‘mad’ about unjust events- I just wish social media didn’t present so many false events to get mad about. It dilutes the purpose of being upset with injustice, replacing it instead with a capitalistic intentioned manipulation. So, my message in conclusion is: get mad, but do your research first.