Kike, wop, chink, slope, spic, nigger, raghead, redneck, faggot, honkey, asshole. Do these words create hate and anger as one reads them? Will people believe that I am a racist because I choose to start my article with these words?
What about an article with the following headlines: "How the Elite Exploit Orlando","Hillary's State Dept. Blocked Investigation into Orlando's Killer's Mosque","Obama: Powerful Firearms too Easy to Get in America". Would I create hate by sharing, posting or replying on these articles?
http://www.infowars.com/hillarys-state-dept-blocked-investigation-into-orlando-killers-mosque/
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/obama-powerful-firearms-too-easy-to-get-in-america-704549443961
http://www.infowars.com/how-the-elite-exploit-orlando/
In today's society these words do not even have to be said anymore to create hatred or for people to become more divided. In fact, people do not even have to face each other anymore in order to communicate their anger and hatred. We have now the greatest hatred creating tool of all time: social media.
Alot of criticism has come about the mass television media being biased and not reporting objectively when it comes to people and situations. I have rarely heard anyone say that social media has caused biased and no objectivity. In today's world, social media is a greater source of communication than television media. Where television may only reach 22 million local viewers, social media can reach hundreds of million global viewers.
The best things about social media are also the worst things about social media. Everyone has a voice and that voice can be shared not only instantly but around the world. If people are seeking attention by doing some outrageous act, it can be shared around the world and that person can become famous. If terrorists want their actions to be public, which is their goal because it spreads fear, then social media was the best thing invented in their world.
Just look at the current issue with the George Floyd killing. It happened in Minnesota, yet it went around the world immediately. Immediately the social media went crazy from the moment the news broke into the next day. Everyone knew not only that George Floyd was killed by police officers but that he was actually a person with a criminal past.
In searching social media, the hatred spread. It wasn't just one kind of hatred, it was a ton. Hatred against the police. Hatred against whites. Hatred against the city. Hatred against BLM. Hatred against Confederates. Hatred against George Washington. Hatred against names. Hatred against the government. This hatred came from people, pages, blogs and the national media. In the end, 1 persons death created a world of hatred and division in this country.
This is how things work in the Social Media world of the 21st century. It is no longer just an incident, it is now a race issue, it is an immigration issue and it might have well just decided the election this November. We start blaming police for the crime, we start blaming people for not caring about racial injustice, we start groups because people belonged to them and we even blamed slavery owners because now anything racial has to be blamed on that. You have the hatred coming from comments and shares of ordinary people yet we only blame the groups.
No longer do we have to justify to ourselves whether the actions we do are ok as human beings. There were people that made comments that this is okay killing this person because he was a criminal or killing cops because it is justice. It was okay ignoring the violence that was happening to other African Americans because they were killed by African Americans. We continue to sop thinking of victims as human beings who lost their life but instead they are just part of a group that we hate.
The media starts with the first communication, most notably the heading. Many people will not look past the heading so it has become important for the heading to grab people. Some people will look further into the media, some will just look at the heading or a picture and move forward from there with their response. If this is all we have to go forward, is it really that important to us to know the truth?
If an article is posted that says "Hillary Clinton Wants to Stop Americans from Dying' and it is an article saying we need to look at changing our gun laws to save people, it may not get too many people to read it. However, if the same article has the title "Hillary Clinton Wants to Take Your Guns”, some may not even get past the headline thus automatically starting to create the hate. Suddenly, Hillary Clinton wants to take your guns instead of trying to save people. Another result of this is that the same story may have different headers because it comes from different sources with different agendas. So it may not just create hate in one place, it may create hate in several.
Then it is onto the next part which is people commenting on the posting or sharing it with others that may believe the same thing they do, which may cause even more anger. For years, we have internalized our frustration with things, not used our voice because we were afraid of getting into some kind of trouble or simply got mad without a way to express it. Now we can say whatever is on our mind related to the posting or against the posting. We sit behind our computers, yelling, screaming and antagonizing as much as we want without repercussions. We can be as rude and nasty as we want because who is going to stop us.
In the end, the group that uses the hatred tool the most is the one that is most effected by it: We the People. Is this the most ironic tool in history?
So how does the hate progress in social media?
I think the best example of this is during our current Presidential election cycle. The candidates may each have several pages or articles out there that show both sides of their campaign. They may use this to spread the hatred faster than what would happen on television because now the supporters are involved in it.
Bernie Sanders was not attacked by any candidate but was attacked by supporters of both as wanting to spend all of our money to give people ‘free’ things. Not only that but also being attacked by the DNC for being too Progressive. Where the campaign has not seen the bad parts of Bernie Sanders, social media has made sure that his weaknesses and any bad history has come to light to fuel the fire.
Hatred for Joe Biden is nothing new, it had been happening since social media had started. There has been nothing out of bounds, even going as far as making fun of him if he did have dementia. The truth or the issues is not important, when people have in their mind to hate someone, it allows them to justify commenting and trolling their hateful rhetoric.
The candidate that probably understands social media the most and has used it to his advantage has been Donald Trump. He knows that the minute he makes an outlandish comment, it is going viral and it will spring both support and hatred. He knows this is free advertising, where before you had to pay to show on television. The hatred caused by his social media has gone one step further to cause violence.
It doesn’t even stop at the presidential candidates, hatred has been thrown at our current president like no other. No matter what he does, good or bad, he is going to be attacked. If he says the wrong thing or nothing at all where people think he should, he will be attacked. If people do not like him because he is black, he will be attacked. No other president in history has had to endure the social media onslaught that our current president has and all future presidents will have to deal with it as well. Can you imagine if FDR in his wheelchair had to deal with social media or Washington with his wooden false teeth?
Terrorism thrives on getting attention for their cause and having their actions made public to instill fear. Have we noticed that terrorism in the new age has actually increased or is it that we just hear about it faster? Isn't social media the perfect outlet for terrorists? Think about it, they want to see that their cause all over the place and now it is instantly broadcast throughout the world. To make it worse, they can now see the fear and division of everyone on line. They can see our comments, they can see our anger and they can see when we are fighting with each other. How does this not help terrorists?
Even groups are trying to use social media to get their cause known but many times it actually turns around into hatred. For example, Black Lives Matter is something that was created because they felt there was no voice about the deaths of black people at the hands of police officers. Some people took it as offensive that only black lives should matter, some police took it as blue lives do not matter and when BLM spoke alot of people took it as blacks trying to be militant again. Instead of looking at what they were trying to do or for BLM looking at how it was going to be perceived, everyone took their own view of it and even though some things have been done, people are still dying and people are still hating.
An interesting question is if many of those using social media are using us as hate creators because we have made it so easy for them. It used to be that incidents would bring people together, now it divides us because all sides get to express their voice about the issue. Once that voice is spread people take sides and then the issue really doesn't get fixed. Take the bathroom issue in NC. First some famous athlete changes gender and makes the entire thing public. Instead of this being a good thing for others, next thing we know the government is banning people from bathrooms. Then celebrities are cancelling shows, taking money out of people's pockets. Politicians are saying these people should not be allowed in the same place as little girls, even though they have been doing it for years. On the other side, people are saying it discriminating because it has never been proven that people are molested in bathrooms. In the end, has anything really been resolved on the issue other than hatred?
I saw a comment recently where someone asked how are we suppose to fix these issues if the people are their own worst enemy? I thought about it and I could only say that the answer lies in each of us as human beings. If we think that our religion is more important than treatment of human beings nothing can be fixed. If we think our social status is more important than treatment of human beings nothing can be fixed. If we think trying to stop our fear is more important than treatment of human beings nothing can be fixed.
Social media is only going to increase over the years and with it, the hatred. I wouldn’t be surprised if this article provoked its amount of hate simply from the words in it. If that happens, there really is nothing I can do about it. That is social media in the 21st century and we may finally be at that point where everything we say will keep us so divided we cannot come together to find the real solutions of the world.