The ways the power of Social Media can be harnessed

With it’s rapid rise to the top of human culture, Social Media has become a pillar in our major events in our history. Social Media holds a lot of power where it currently sits. Everything in our daily lives revolves around technology and social media. It has become the most dominant way to communicate, explore, learn, etc. From the looks of it, it doesn’t look like social media is going anywhere anytime soon. It may evolve past the platforms we are currently using, but that doesn’t mean it’s going away. When we address something that has such stick in our way of life, we need to realize the power that something like that is going to harness. Social Media has literally changed the entire course of an election whether it be for good, or bad, we shall see, but it definitely happened. Social Media has also often served as the gasoline on the fire of social movements.

With the election in mind, we have a few things to look at. Trump’s social media campaign arguably won the election for him. Let’s look at the statement for a second. A SOCIAL MEDIA campaign won him the ELECTION. Now the candidates in the 2016 election were not the cream of the crop by any means, but I think we are slightly overlooking social media’s role in this. Before this point, no candidate or president has ever had the level of interaction that Trump displayed during the election and continues to display. I’ve heard people express how they have no idea how someone could get behind and vote for someone like that. Prior to the 2016 election, people have long debated whether these elections were rigged or not. It was a constant cycle of the drama in Washington DC overshadowing the entire United States. The people didn’t feel represented properly, and people were getting restless. Then here comes Trump, on TV and also all-over social media (mostly tweeting, but the tweets made their way across all platforms). He became regular and personal with these people. He constantly stated what he wanted to change, and his rallies quickly became popular. The masses had never been exposed to something quite like that before, and they were already at the point where they were getting restless with the system. Social Media provided the outlet which Trump reached all of us through, and that won him the election. If that doesn’t demonstrate the potential power social media harnesses, I don’t know what would.

Social Media has also had huge sway power when it comes to various social movements that we have experienced in the digital age. Social Movements have ended up being disrespectful and violent in the grounds of social media. Regardless of what the movement is for, people always seem to find something to argue about in the comment sections, which leads to hate infused words that someone wouldn’t say in a normal situation. Like I said before, this is regardless of the intent of the movement, and it’s sad because in a way, it takes away from what the movement is. Take BLM as an example, it was started to bring awareness to the multiple police killings and could’ve been a good time to reevaluate as a nation, but social media was home to many extremists and soon it lit a wildfire that was almost impossible to stop. For months, BLM was on the news, but not for the right reasons. Instead of having that time to say what they are about and what the movement intends to do, it was spread with the message that this movement is violent and hostile. Once that happened, everyone started to divide into different viewpoints. So, in that light Social Media was used to manipulate and ‘change’ the motives of a movement

In conclusion, the power that Social Media currently holds in our society is both amazing and frightening at the same time. In a sense, it could be used for amazing feats, but we are mostly using it to tear things down. That’s why I believe until the AI become self-aware, it is never the machine, it’s the person programming the machine. We just have to be aware that we are giving all of this power to a select group of people, and their platforms are essentially most of the market in the present. So, whether it be a potential new campaign scheme in what Trump did with Social Media, or the comments sections and extremist changing the course of a movement, Social Media is something to be careful with. If used right, it could elevate Social Movements to heights yet to be seen. People will have to put their need for agendas and conflicts aside, and really hear everyone out before we decide on a sure answer.