An Unscientific Perspective on Facebook, the Liberal Bully Pulpit, and the Flow of Misinformation

BY MICHAEL COHEN

The white “equals” sign on red background is good – and the hooded Skittles-wielding figures, even better. These are statements of sponsorship for important attitudes of our times. They’re simple yet elegant and, at worst, they cause no serious harm.

But beyond profile picture advocacy, Facebook political discussion does more harm than good.

The first problem lies not in the images, but in the captions, comments, and status updates that follow. Too often, supportive and supposedly virtuous champions of an issue slip into vitriolic browbeating. What’s worse is that they don’t even realize it.

As an unequivocal supporter of marriage equality, I, too, was enthusiastic about the Supreme Court decision this past June that struck down discriminatory provisions of the Defense of Marriage Act. However, I found that the Facebook discourse was aggressive. With audible dissenters few and far between, adherents of traditional marriage who did post their opinions were routinely bludgeoned by those claiming to represent love, compassion, and freedom. Those who did not project their disagreement were still treated (along with everyone else) to a barrage of status updates attacking religion, conservatives, and “the haters.”

In more general terms, there is a trend forming where progressives on this campus and campuses across the country are moralizing conservatives using tactics that would be considered “bullying” or “shaming” in any other context. Preaching love and tolerance as a cover or a justification can only go so far. Sure, conservatives are just as guilty on social media in many instances, but not nearly to the same pervasive extent as the college-age left  (at least within my privileged social media environs). Regardless, it’s inconsistent to demand a higher standard of morality, i.e. marriage equality and equal opportunity, without embodying one.

And that seems to get lost on many budding Facebook-reformists. All too often, progressives on social media breach the line that divides an expression of opinion from a statement of moral certainty. Facebooking one’s support for a political standpoint is fine. All I am suggesting is that everyone leaves his or her self-righteousness stashed away where no one can see it. Not only is it wildly ineffective at changing hearts and minds, it also breeds a resentment that can make political opposites all the more intractable in their beliefs. You can resist patting yourself on the back for your social advocacy. In fact, it is in the best interests of those you are hoping to support.

The mistreatment of dissenters is serious, but only the first of two significant concerns when it comes to Facebook politics. The dissemination of misinformation — whether due to ignorance, blatant dishonesty, or an irresponsible presentation of key facts — isn’t uniquely liberal or conservative, but it is a major component in the erosion of dialogue across the political spectrum.

When the Affordable Care Act was making its rounds through Congress, Facebook political analysts took to their friends’ statuses with timeless arguments like “it’ll kill jobs” and “everyone deserves access to affordable health care.” Such platitudes were representative of largely one-dimensional views on a very complex topic. Reading a New York Times article or a heartbreaking anecdote should not be a license to post unqualified comments on Facebook.

A voice for everybody means everyone has a voice. No one has to earn it. The internet’s democratization of expression, specifically the ease of distribution afforded by social media, means an unavoidable exposure to a lot of uninformed opinions. Unfortunately, these uninformed opinions operate by the same rules of virology that govern YouTube videos and BuzzFeed articles. They spread quickly. We trust our friends, and we instinctively trust what they say. But there are no fact-checkers on Facebook. No one is responsible for upholding the quality of those long, impassioned political analyses we have all seen on our feeds. Yet the potential effects are far-reaching.

This is most assuredly not an argument for the limitation of free speech. The point is that there is often a gross imbalance between the expertise of the average self-accredited web politico and the conviction with which he or she presents an opinion on social media. This discrepancy has been wreaking havoc in a far shorter time ever since the public adopted Facebook on a wide scale. Misinformed people have more power than ever, and there are few controls in place to mitigate the collateral damage…the domino effect of misinformation. With that in mind, the responsibility lies with college students, who have the resources and the abilities to develop serious political cognizance, to refrain from posting irresponsibly and to work towards a higher standard of political discourse.