Blog 9: Social Media and Moderation
Published on:
Case Study:
Censorship of Misinformation and Freedom of Speech on Social Media
Today’s case study strives to combat a widely adopted culture of censorship in digital media. The case study pushes to think about how today’s misinformation is not something that came out of blue but that it is a symptom of a much deeper issue that has been brewing for quite sometime.
In this blog, I am going to hold a discussion of some of the great reflective questions posed at the end of the case study and then I will introduce my own after.
In the case study, there is a critical assertion that misinformation appears to be worse now that it was in the past. I completely agree with this and the first example that comes to mind is the large presence of misogynistic discourse on social media targetted towards the youth most of the time. These discourse are a society-wide issue that take advantage of young men in their developmental stages of life without much experience already. With an increasingly younger society we have, this type of misinformation proves to be a big threat especially when it leads to toxic masculinity and a disregard of men’s mental health.
The case study also discusses several institutions that have helped to disseminate reliable information. They are praised on how effective they are in establishing order to the information ecosystem. However in today’s age of internet, there are numerous sources of knowledge on the internet with regards to professional skill development. A lot of online platform that offer courses on various topics usually do not present opportunities for critical thinking and they often provide content that is easily digestible and meant to be consumed in one go. Although these sources of knowledge increase the reach of information to various parts of the world, especially to those not fortunate enough to attend traditional academic institutions, they fail to convey the essential skills to the pursuit of knowledge. Skills such as critical thinking, and active learning. These platforms can push their audience to undermine how much it takes to become an expert in something.
One of the questions I genuinely like asks if there are some things that I can truly know by myself without relying on the trustworthiness of other people or institutions. I think this part knowledge is very limited. An example I can give is things like how I feel or the effects of external factors on my body. I think I can access and truly know this type of information just by myself without any other intermediary. As the question notes, the problem arises when another party is involved as people’s words highly depend on how they feel at a specific moment so they cannot be trusted fully. On this note of how people feel, I could say the same about myself as well. So, in reality, even on things about myself, it really depends on the day for me to be certain that I am accurate in my self-assessment. For example, If I am mad at something or someone, I cannot trust any assessment I do as accurate.
The ending question is a reflective question. It asks for strategies to employ to avoid falling for misinformation online. Personally, I trust very little of the information I see online so oftentimes I do not even care if it is accurate or not. However, there are times when I get information like breaking news that I really need to know if it is real or not. My usual go-to in this scenario is Google Search. If I come across the same information in a lot webpages online, that is my sign that it is accurate. Another strategy I have been using is to check the reputation of who is sharing the information. Reputation comes in the form of number of followers and who they claim to be in their page description. Some pages tell you straight away that they are a meme page so that is your sign that it is not in their interest to provide trustworthy news. Other pages claim that they are a trustworthy news pages. In this case, I scroll through their content and look at previous comments to see what other people had to say about the page’s previous news reports. I have realized that if it is an untrustworthy news page, most of the audience will say so in the comments section.
To finish off, I came up with a question of mine that relates to the current social media atmosphere with the rise AI-generated content. There is an increasing number of AI-generated texts, images and videos across social media. Most of the said AI content can be mistaken for real content without careful consideration. What are true and tested ways someone can detect AI-generated videos for example and do you think the current AI models will improve to generate more human-like content than we have now? I include this question because I think it adapts really well the great case study we just read to the new age of AI that is upon us.
Reflecting on today’s blog, I appreciate the lots of information I learned about history and the way information moves. Today’s exercise helped me understand better today’s censorship-obsessed society in a way that was satisfying because of the great level of details that the case study provided. Adding onto that, the case study of this blog made me appreaciate more about being in college as I was learning how academic institutions were established as sources to create and preserve trustworthy information for society.