Social media as we all know has became an outlet of ourselves. Interestingly, most people tend to treat social media as real circumstance in life; a medium of interaction where exchanges in information, knowledge and feeling is done almost instantaneously and automatically.
Much more, this has become the major medium of sharing even the minutest aspect of our lives, giving ourselves that ultimate freedom and power to express what we really want to say and shout…..the hell society cares!
However, everything has its limit by the way. Spidey’s Uncle Ben even put it this way, “great power comes great responsibility…”
In the following discussion, we will be signing out with our impulses and halt a bit of clicking and typing within our social media space and try to munch a bit of these few tips on becoming responsible social media users.
Now, would you agree guys if I insist that fake news and misinformation is the total reciprocate of being a responsible social media user? Admit, it, you agree.
I should say, that for the past year until this dawn of 2017, we are taught with nothing than fake news and misinformation. Yes, I know, you are now having that DDS sort of stuff in your head… Yes keep it going…..Mocha Blogs, Duterte Supporters Blog, Thinking Pinoy Blog…and a lot of this stuff. It is only this period that we are beginning to realize how much of these fake news sites and blog has affected our relationships with our friends and relatives through hate campaign against the so called “dilawans”, and how this same blogs and sites had even prostituted our fellow-Filipino’s sense of sanity, which I hypothesize is about 16M bots.
The said part is that fake news and misinformation has finally become a threat not only to social media (the sane part of it), but also the traditional media. The sadder part of it is that fake news and misinformation can spread in milliseconds like wildfire. And the saddest part is we tend to be accessories of fake news proliferation by actually sharing articles and news without even reading the article. You know what I mean…. If the headline or title do sound like ka-DDS sort thing, we will automatically share the article without even thinking twice or even half of it.. I know a lot of people who share social media feeds based on impulse and thoughtless mouse clicks. I know many of them, which I hypothesize is about 16M bots. I don’t think I could accept the fact that the factuality of a news will someday be weighed according the number of shares and likes in Facebook and other social media platforms.
Well, the proliferation of fake news and misinformation do not only come from the obliviousness of careless un-thinking Pinoys (about 16M bots). Misinformation may also be “capital-driven”. This means deliberate sensationalization of some media outlets, or “bending reality” for the purpose of “giving in” to what their followers want. Well, Google Trends has a lot to say about this.
Question, are we really in a situation of falling into the pit of misinformation and fake news as we go along with our social media lives? Well, nobody knows, even the spin doctors would not tell….
But we can do something. We can be responsible social media user! Being such would allow us to get the most accurate information that we want and could likewise share accurate information with our peers and family members.
The following notes will discuss ways to become a responsible social media user.
Decide and design your news feed.
Actually, we are the architects of our own newsfeed. Newsfeed is that part of our social media platform i.e. Facebook, here comments and various activities of our “Friends” are flagged or announced. We are the gatekeeper, the ultimate curator of our social media space. Anytime, we can always filter from whose “Friend” are we going to show in our newsfeed. Its like choosing which furniture are still of use, and which are garbage, well I know some them….. Yes the bots!
You might want to review the people and the Facebook pages that you follow. The general rule is, the more people and the more Pages you follow, the more newsfeed will automatically creep you out.! Siply put, maintain which friends and pages that are is the same with your interest or something that is personal to you. After all, Facebook never gives millions of dollars for FB accounts that have many “Friends”.
You might also want to remove tabloids and blogs that knowingly share false information just to generate high click rates for their advertisers. You know who they are when you see them, so take the extra five seconds to visit their profile and unfollow. In a race for clicks many decent media groups have spiraled out of control, morphing into a meaningless feed of conspiracies, lies and controversial accusations. Cut the cord by un-following content publishers that serve a shameless advertising agenda. Then replace them with trusted, reliable sources. I really love reading Mocha Uson Blogs and The Thinking Pinoy.
Background Checking
Most often, we have this tendency of reciprocating the “sharing” favor to our social media friends who have likewise shared our posts beforehand. Let’s put it this way. For example, you made a post about “single mothers” and FB friend A shared your post to his/her FB friends B, C, D….etc. As human nature of “reciprocation”, you will then be sharing whatever FB friend A will be posting, as a gratitude for sharing your posts. This may be a good practice among circle of friends who share similar interests and values. However, there lies danger of manipulation and deceit in here. Unaware of the source of a particular FB post, and eventually sharing this post to our friends may do harm than good. What if the “reciprocated” shared post is actually a false news or article which is harmful to others?
Remember, “what we share on social media is just as important as what we absorb on social media.” Sharing news is worthwhile, as long as it is founed on truth and empirical basis. Social media feeds trample on the other hand, because of proliferation of wrng information and misleading news items. Misinformation could actually discredit a personality or institution because of exponential sharing of fake social media feeds/news. So the rule of thumb on sharing, background check if necessary before sharing any information in social media. However, of qualifying your sources seems like too much trouble on your part, then consider not sharing articles and published information which you are not sure of. Be contended on the picture of your favorite shoes instead.
Be wary of false “social media prophets”. Eliminate them from your space
Admit it. Not all of your social media friends are actually your real-life friends. Meaning, you don’t really personally know your 1000+ FB friends do you? Be keen on your posers. If at the onset, you discover an FB friend posting a questionable and unreliable newsfeed, you have two options. Call his attention in your FB space and clarify his post once and for all. Well, that would be a bit harsh, but its worth the try. The seoncd option is of course, unfriend him/her! You would not want false news flash in your news feed, with you’re your colleagues and love ones reading your banner of false news and misinformative news items.
You might also want to categorize your FB friends into three. The first category should be your FB friends who are your real life fiends or realtives and love nes. The second category would be the Friends of your FB friends. And the third category are your friends in FB whom you haven’t personally met yet. You may never know, but having these categories comes in handy when it comes to choosing who on F you are going to trust, and who are not worthy of it.
Read what you share, and share only what you read
Oftentimes, we get too excited with what we browse-read and eventually end up sharing this particular material. However, it would be frustrating that in the second look, wht we have shared really was not actually thought about it in the first place. If the items that we shared have harmed a person or an institution, then all that we could do say sorry to them or pretend that we could no longer remember that particular harmful post that we have shared.
Yourself is not only your audience
Social media is called as such because of nothing. Socially media posts and threads are there to live forever, unless you deliberately delete them. Likewise, we have a vast number of audience that will read and share our posts. So the clincher is, social media is still a universe of various living audiences who could read, react and re-share your posts. It is an ecosystem of living humans who can remember you or your particular post, those who could refer to your Fb profile and those who could screen grab your post and use it for any good or evil purpose.
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As a gist, the golden verse for this article would be, “think before you click”. Remember the rule of nature, for every action, there is always an equal but opposite reaction (or counter-action for this context.) What we do in social media, may apparently hit us back in the future, God knows when.
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