Twitter is the Democracy

By Kendal Clawson

Social Media, but especially Twitter is one of our main ways of communicating in our society today. It should be censored more, but we also need it to keep our Democracy alive and well.

Personal Component: As an aspiring journalist, writer, author, and photographer, I feel that I have a responsibility and obligation to continually post and publish my work on different forms of social media. I love the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I love it because of my love for writing and photography. I like the idea that both of the things I love can be one. Knowing that saying to be true, I know I need to be careful about what my images could convey to someone when they see them. 

With that, I feel it necessary for me to post accurate, true and censored content. There are many sources that do not do that and create false news that others so easily believe. Expressing ourselves freely and openly on online platforms was not the start of Freedom of Speech, in fact, it dates even further back before the digital age.

One of the first times in history that we fought for a voice 

Historical Component: When the original 13 colonies fought against the Britains, in many ways, they fought to be heard. They fought also to have some representation and respect. They were getting taxed without knowing where their money was going. In their minds, this was unfair and not right. Voicing their opinions was what lead to the Revolutionary War and eventually the independence from Britain. James Otis once said, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." In comparing this type of voicing of opinion to the voicing of opinion we find in our modern world, how do we know if what we are saying is good or harmful? This is a question that we must ask ourselves especially with what people so freely post now a days. Speaking out against higher powers was what the colonists did and it was through these kinds of people that our democracy was created. How can we modernly keep a democracy, but at the same time censor the content that is put out online? First we must know the closer history behind it.

In 2006, Twitter was launched onto the internet first as a way of allowing users to communicate using short messages to brainstorm new and creative ideas for a podcasting company. Now it has turned into the way that people receive news, keep up with celebrities, find funny memes, see opinions of current and past events and many other things. The way we communicate with one another on Twitter is important and should be regulated, but is not by everyone. Twitter has a specific set of rules that the users must follow in order to stay in the twitter sphere. 

President Donald Trump frequently violates the user agreement by posting hateful content and/or violent threats, but Twitter allows it by making loopholes to excuse him. The President of The United States of America does not follow the rules on Twitter. Does that mean everyone can be excused from not filtering themselves on Social Media? 

In an interview with the New York Times, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said that "while Twitter’s longtime guiding principle has been free expression, the company is now discussing “that safety should come first.”' For many years in our nation's history we have been fighting for more and more freedom, but what we have chosen to do with that freedom is what is harming us. In our history in the print era, in order to get your words out there, you had to go through a rigorous censorship in order to get published in the newspaper. A lot of the time, you wouldn't get what you wanted published actually published. There is history of writers living in Grub Street in the 19th century as "hack writers." A hack writer is one that is paid to write low quality, rushed articles or books very quickly. These writers were paid per word so, as you can imagine, what these hack writers produced was of low quality. There wasn't much freedom in what they were writing at the time because they were writing to survive. The passion in writing that is needed in order for writing to inspire or to change the perspective of others was probably lessened in this process. 

Rhetorical Component: In many ways, there are wars going on around us because of the freedom we are giving out so freely. In January of last year there was an alert sent out to the people of Hawaii informing them that a missile was coming inbound, that it was not a drill and that they should seek shelter. In response to the alert, the people posted and communicated on twitter to find out if the alert was true. It turned out to be a false alarm that caused chaos. There are plenty of more examples of false alarms in crime and other categories, but not all have been so life threatening. 

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Social media may not be the best epistemology for our news. The process of checking our sources before believing what we are reading online is becoming more and more important as time goes on and technology is advancing.

This struggle within popular culture connects us and in many ways is what holds us together globally. We depend on it frequently and it has now become a necessary tool within our societies. The big question is how we can keep progressing as a society if most of the content being posted on the internet is either holding us back or keeping us where we are now. It is up to us.

Sources

Cecilia Kang and Kate Conger. “Inside Twitter's Struggle Over What Gets Banned.” 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/technology/twitter-free-speech-infowars.html.

Rienstein , Julia. “Here's How People Reacted When The False Alarm ‘Missile Threat’ Alert Went Out In Hawaii.” 2018, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/hawaii-missile-false-alarm-social-media-reax.