Spying on Society

The influence of social media on elections and people’s opinions has become a hot topic following the recent presidential election. New evidence suggests that other countries, particularly Russia, used social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) to influence who people would vote for. By posting false or skewed information, Russia was able to sway people in the direction of the candidate that they wanted to be elected. Thus, this occurrence raises a question. Is there anything social media companies can do about false information being posted or other countries meddling in events that they shouldn’t be? The answer to this tough question is yes and no. On the one hand, the answer to this question would be no because there is just too much information to be read through and monitored that it would take too much time, money, and effort that companies would never do unless forced by the government. However, on the other side of things, the government, in particular, the NSA and CIA, does have the ability to monitor millions of accounts and access where posts are coming from and can stop certain posts from making it online. But this also raises another question. Is it moral to spy on people and certain accounts and watch what these people are posting? The answer to this question may lie within literature that is much older than social media.

In the play Hamlet during Act 2 Scene 1, Polonius, who is essentially the chief of staff within the castle, orders two of his workers to spy on Hamlet because he has been acting strangely. They attempt to spy on him by speaking and engaging with him. However, it becomes obvious to Hamlet that he is being spied on. And once he realizes that he is being spied on, he does not act strangely around the two servants. Therefore, if people, especially other meddling countries, knew that they were being watched/spied on when posting on social media, maybe it would change what they post for the better. Hopefully, these accounts would be more conscious of what they are posting and not post false information used to sway people’s thoughts in the wrong direction. Furthermore, by cleaning social media, it may also lead to a more educated population because eventually, everything that people see on the internet would be true and there would be no doubt of that.

 

Trust in Society

      When somebody looks up the word trust in the New Oxford American Dictionary, the first definition they will find states “a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” Furthermore, if that same person glances to the next definition, they will read “acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation.” Both of these definitions of trust are tested often in our daily lives. For example, driving is an activity that has become an integral part of our daily lives. Although we may not realize it, we put the trust of our lives into all other drives on the road. The driver in one car trusts the fact that the other drivers on the road will follow the laws and be responsible while driving. Therefore, whether humans recognize it or not, they have developed a societal trust within each other. The importance of societal trust is that it brings people together. If people didn’t have a genuine trust in one another, humans would not act together, and instead they would develop a personality where they would only think for themselves and not others. Therefore, the more trust and belief in one another that humans have, the more humans will accomplish as a species because they will work together to solve major problems instead of being single-minded and only caring about themselves. The idea of trust leading to problems being solved is directly exemplified in the play proof.

      In the play proof, Catherine, the protagonist of the story, claims that she has completed a proof that would change the way people look at mathematics. Instead, people are skeptical because they believe that her father wrote the proof and not her. When it became evident that people did not believe that Catherine wrote the proof, she wants nothing to do with the proof and couldn’t care less as to what happened to it. At first, because nobody trusts that Catherine wrote the proof, what would have been a great achievement could have been lost. However, after long consideration, people ultimately believe and trust that she wrote the proof. Following this decision, Catherine begins the pursuit of explaining and eventually publishing her proof to the world. Therefore, if people had not come to their senses and believed in Catherine, a major milestone in history would never have occurred because the proof never would have been published.

      In conclusion, today there seems to be a lack of societal trust because of the abundance of different opinions. Because people don’t necessarily agree with others on certain issues, people have begun to lose trust and separate as a society. This separation is not beneficial to anybody because it has led to lack of accomplishment. To rebuild societal trust, humans must begin to respect and believe in the ideas of others. However, until humans start to truly believe in one another again, there will be a continuation of separation among people.

 

The Block’s of Society

 

“Although tools for communication have improved further than anybody could have dreamed of, they have not brought us together and instead have distanced humans from each other. People are now able to hide behind screens, never having to interact with others.”

      Social media was created to bring people closer together. And maybe it did in some sense – people in the United States are now able to communicate with people in China. However, there was a greater impact from Social Media on the “home front”. What I mean by “home front” is that people are slowly losing the art of socializing and building relationships because they are now able to hide behind their computer and phone screens and communicate through these new devices. Interestingly, the creators of social media, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger (Instagram), and Noah Glass (Twitter), never intended on their creations doing harm. Instead, they wanted to connect the people around the world, not distance them from each other. This is similar to the premise of the novel Frankenstein. In the novel, Dr. Frankenstein brought his creation to life in hopes of doing in the world by furthering the medical field. Instead, he created a “monster” that ended up murdering many people and doing more harm than good. Therefore, this raises a question, has social media done more harm or good in the world? Obviously, there is not a single word yes or no answer to the question or even a correct answer to the question. It encompasses so many different problems in society that humans have not even begun to understand how to solve them. However, having said this, the way to solve our social media problems may just be solved using social media. It is similar to how pollution has been caused by new technologies and developments in the fossil fuels realm. But the only way to fix the problems these new technologies have caused is to develop new and better technology that is cleaner and better for the environment. We have begun to see how social media may begin to solve the problem of people distancing themselves through new types of movements such as the metoo movement and others that bring people together through a common cause. These types of things are what are going to bring people together – good in the world. People are going to have to unite against the bad through social media and begin to bring people back together again and start having conversations. Because when it comes down to it, words are the most powerful weapons people have today.

William Goldberg’s Blog