by Jackie Zhang
Social media is a phenomenon that has been increasingly prevalent in every person’s day-to-day lives and it has a tremendous effect on what information the American people get and the decisions that they make accordingly. More recently, activity on social media platforms has begun to have ramifications on the political and electoral landscape. 72% of U.S. citizens of voting age actively use some form of social media, while 69% of Americans in the same group use Facebook alone. While mainstream platforms that have seen consistent growth in users can have both positive and negative impacts on politics, there is no denying that social media is here to stay and will continue to have an enormous impact on how people think, vote, and participate in democracy.
Social media platforms can positively educate and keep Americans informed while allowing politicians to communicate with the public more efficiently and intimately. According to a poll in 2017, 67 percent of U.S. adults get their daily news from social media and that percentage has only grown. Facebook dominates with 45 percent of American adults, Youtube is next with 18 percent, and Twitter has the remaining 11 percent. For Twitter, 74 percent of the adults that use the platform say they get their news from there and it benefits highly from Donald Trump’s daily tweets. Social media provides a convenient place for American adults to stay informed and keep up to date with politics. It brings learning opportunities and diversifies the tide of information that Americans receive in their daily lives. According to Pew Research, 75 percent of Americans feel better informed about National news because of social media. Senators and politicians are also able to connect with the American people much more often and conveniently with social media. Not only do high profile politicians like Donald Trump and Joe Biden use Twitter to spread their opinions on policies, events, and more, lesser known state senators are also able to use the platform to campaign and promote their ideas. Social media makes it much easier to connect with the general public than if they were to appear on national television and it creates a greater feeling of intimacy and familiarity between the politicians and the people.
Social media platforms can have positive impacts on the political landscape but they can also cause much harm. QAnon is one of the best examples of the harmful effects that are directly caused by social media and the political cult-followings that it generates. What began as a small group of Trump Supporters gathering together in discrete corners of the internet has now sprouted into a movement, seeming to increase in size every day on major platforms including Facebook and Twitter. QAnon is the name of the conspiracy theory following and their basic belief is that America and the media are run by Satan-worshippers and pedophiles who run a child-trafficking organization and the only person that can fight them is President Donald Trump. While this is the basic idea that binds this cult following, the members of QAnon have so many internal debates, offshoots, and differing opinions that sometimes contradict each other that there is no possible way to simply list all of their core claims. However, The Anti Defamation League noted the many Anti-Semitic elements of their core theories and how the supporters were actively condoning the rise of Anti-Semetism in the U.S. and around the world.
All of this began when an anonymous user calling themself “Q” posted a series of messages on the internet board 4chan. These messages were often hard to decipher and contained heavy pro-Trump themes. With the aid of major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, QAnon has grown exponentially since 2017 and their dangerous ideas have spread significantly. Its followers have grown to the thousands and they have only grown during the coronavirus pandemic. Despite their claims being constantly refuted such as the one about the Russian investigation being a coverup for special counsel Robert Mueller helping Donald Trump investigate the pedophiles, the interests of the conspiracy theorists simply drifted to other topics. FBI has warned that conspiracy theories like QAnon pose a domestic terrorist threat due to the fact that some of its followers have been charged with murder and kidnapping relating to their beliefs.
For many of the avid followers of QAnon, it forms the basis for their unwavering support for President Trump. Trump in return has been known, whether intentionally or not, to retweet QAnon supporters and his son Eric Trump posted a QAnon meme on Instagram a couple of months ago. In addition, it is incredibly concerning that at least 19 House Republicans that support the QAnon movement were on the November ballot. Two of them were elected to the United States House of Representatives: Majorie Taylor Greene for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District and Lauren Boebert for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. The fact that lawmakers and the people that hellp create policies for the United States are buying into these insane and outlandish theories is incredibly troublesome and demonstrates the increasing growth and power of the QAnon movement. Without the assistance of social media platforms, QAnon would not have been able to achieve this amount of extensive growth and expand their incredibly harmful and radical theories. Millions of eligible voters across the U.S. use Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube and have been influenced by these violent ideologies; these platforms offer a space for these people who share these ideologies to come together and spread their ideas to others. Social media news consumers also are more likely to be exposed to other fringe theories like the idea that the coronavirus was intentionally planned. 26 percent of those who primarily get their information from social media said they heard much about this conspiracy which is significantly much larger than all other news platforms.
Social media is growing to be every pervasive aspect of the everyday lives of most Americans. And while it is a powerful tool that mainly allows us to connect with friends and family members and share our creativity, it is undeniable that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more will also have an enormous impact on the political landscape. In both harmful and productive ways, social media will change how the American people receive information and make decisions based on it. It is important that we as Americans stay vigilant about the facts and figures we see on the internet and always critically examine everything that we learn.