Coming home from college to a quarantine with your parents comes with a long list of pros and cons that I’m sure most students are acutely aware of by now. Home-cooked meals go great with misguided discussions of social media and politics. When I think about how educated and reasonable my parents are, it scares me that they can still fall victim to online misinformation. If my parents can be influenced by posts on Facebook, people less educated and less informed must be victims of significant manipulation as well. Social media outlets like Facebook should be obligated to censor content that is both factually incorrect and potentially harmful.
These days, wearing a mask in public spaces seems like common sense, but apparently not everyone thinks so. Facebook pages like “Anti-maskers” and “Anti-mask oligarchy” are places for thousands of people who refuse to wear masks to communicate and share ideas. The problem is that these pages propagate false information about the danger of wearing masks. Facebook has a moral responsibility to censor information that is false and stands to cause people harm. Although my parents are not prone to believing information so obviously inaccurate, media literacy is a spectrum and there are people much less thorough in evaluating internet intel than they are.
The anti-mask pages are just the surface of Facebook’s ocean of misinformation. Pages like “Geoengineering – Weather Warfare, Chemtrails, 5g, Technocracy, loT” are sources of all types of conspiracy, anti-mask propaganda included. This page itself has over 10 new posts a day. Though somewhat diverse in content, most of these groups consist of older people pushing a fear of new technology.
Feeling uncertain right now is understandable as we are facing a global pandemic and experiencing an important social revolution, but Facebook communities like these are taking advantage of people who are desperate for answers.
Facebook should take accountability for allowing the spread of harmful misinformation on their platform. On July 4, a group of anti-maskers gathered in Austin, Texas for a “Shed the mask, don the flag” rally. This protest was organized on Facebook, with security provided by a gun rights group which partnered with rally organizers.
Without Facebook, these individuals would have had a more difficult time organizing, and more importantly they would not have had the same validation. Having a page on Facebook adds credibility to your cause by revealing community support and helping to create infrastructure.
Interestingly enough, President Trump has recently attempted to stop social media companies like Twitter from fact-checking users. When Trump tweeted a debunked myth claiming mail-in ballots are inherently fraudulent, Twitter posted a warning alongside the tweet that linked to real information about mail-in voting. Twitter’s official account posted an explanation for this warning, saying they posted it “…as a part of our efforts to enforce our civic integrity policy.” This statement summarizes the stance Facebook should also take on misinformation.
My parents act as a reminder to me of how some people view and interact with social media. I am grateful that they are as media savvy and informed as they are because there are thousands of people buying into misinformation all over social media, and those numbers are only increasing. Facebook has a responsibility to censor content that stands to cause people harm in the same way they censor threats of violence.
