Who takes ethical responsibility for social media influence?

Author: Kate Baucherel

Date: November 30, 2017

Link: https://www.digitalethics.org/essays/who-takes-ethical-responsibility-social-media-influence

First Impression: The essay probably talks about how social media can influence one’s beliefs, culture, and religion.

Quote: “The internet was made so that our lives would be easier”

Reflection: 

But it is being used to make some people’s lives complicated, especially through social media. When social media happened, we were all happy with the different connections we could make in different areas of the world. We are able to join groups of people who we can relate to, speak freely through the sharing of opinions, react to different things you see while scrolling, and many more. But social media is not all sunshine and rainbows, social media is also a tool being used by its creators as a tool to influence us.This influence could sometimes be good, may be through videos of people doing good to others. And sometimes it may be bad, usually more on the bad side. Since we are all being connected with one another, this happens also for different cultures and religions. Knowing that people, your friends on social media, have different cultures and beliefs there is a possibility of you being influenced to their culture and religion. Making it hard for you and questioning your beliefs whether or not it is right for you. And sometimes politicians work with these social media companies to shift the algorithm to their favor when it is not looking good for them, especially if they are not doing well in the elections. In conclusion, the owners of the social media platform should take ethical responsibility for social media influence, since they started it, they should also be the ones to fix it. Knowing that these owners have close relationships to politics, one should be skeptical of using their platforms and should not fully trust it.

5 Things I Learned

1. Social media can mislead people.

2. Facebook’s mission to bring the world together went the opposite way.

3. There is bias behind the scene on Facebook.

4. Social media companies support their chosen political candidates through targeted advertisements.

5. We can’t trust social media companies on what they do with our data.

5 Integrative Questions

1. If people do not want to get influenced by posts on social media, should they fully stop using it?

2. Are companies influencing people, forcing a psychological warfare, on purpose?

3. How can one control social media’s influence over them?

4. What are big companies take on the internet making life easier?

5. Who should be blamed for the misinformation being displayed in different users’ feeds?