Last week my civic issue post related to how people receive their political news from biased sources and how we can better differentiate fake news on social media platforms. This week however, I want to look at the impact politicians make on politics based on their personal involvement on social media. Social media today is used for many reasons. From creating platforms for fame and fortune, to sharing niches and tips or tricks, and of course, sharing news, social media is equivalent to what live television was 20 or so years ago.

In the past, politicians used to stray from social media and would instead provide information to the masses through national news sources to maintain reliability. Now however, social media has become the newest and easiest way to receive news as quickly as possible. Although this can definitely have it’s advantages, it also leaves quite a bit of room for personal bias. Politicians primarily use Twitter and Instagram to share any news or anything of political significance. Yes, a lot of these accounts are controlled by a team and not the politician themselves, but the information itself is coming from the direct source. 

One of the most involved politicians on social media is/was Donald Trump, the most recent US president before Joe Biden who is currently in office. Because Donald Trump was a celebrity before he was elected as president, his Twitter account already had quite the following and he was rather comfortable with sharing his personal ideas and opinions on his account as he had done in the past. The question is to what point should politicians be able to share biased opinions to the public? Although there were times where he tweeted about political, international, and national news, many of his daily dozen tweets were him complaining and criticizing someone for arguing against his personal views. 

The consequences of Trump sharing his personal ideals took place on January 17th 2021, when Twitter made the decision to ban his account indefinitely after a tweet of his encouraged a violent riot/protest at the United States capitol. Earlier that day, Trump supporters had decided to swarm the capitol in protest of the appointment of president elect Joe Biden. This was in efforts to prevent Biden’s inauguration into office because the president attempted to convince his supporters that the election was “fraudulent” and that the votes were counted incorrectly. Instead of diffusing the situation, he encouraged it. In an article by CNBC on the situation, reporter Lauren Feiner writes,  “As the riot unfolded, Trump tweeted messages encouraging nonviolence, though he later released a video message that also reiterated his unsubstantiated claim that the election was stolen from him and told rioters, ‘We love you.’” To prevent further encouragement from the president to the public, Twitter made the decision to permanently ban Donald Trump’s account. 

On the other spectrum of things, the instagram account of Michelle Obama, the 44th first lady of the United States, is used as a platform of hope and uniformity. Although she still posts things that are rather personal such as photos of her husband or kids, she still uses her platform in a respectful manner…and with over 45.4 million followers, people are in fact listening to what she has to say. Michelle is an excellent demonstration of what social media can do to influence the current political world for the good. At the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, she posted on Instagram a portrait of George Floyd with her caption writing, “…Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it. It’s up to all of us—Black, white, everyone—…” Unlike the Twitter posts that were published daily by Donald Trump that spoke to only one portion of the political audience, Michelle Obama’s Instagram speaks to everyone as a whole to hold our country accountable and thus move forward from the past to the future. In a CNN article by Leah Asmelash on both of Obama’s efforts to reach out to the public via social media she writes on the previously mentioned post, “Both statements come against the backdrop of sometimes violent protests across the nation, as people mourn and show their anger over the death of Floyd.” 

Personal social media pages are just one of the newest ways that modern technology is being used to share the ideas of all different platforms of people, companies, and so forth. Although it can have negative impacts due to to the lack of a “filter”, it’s also good because now news outlets and second sources are less likely to sugar coat, or beat around the bush of an idea or issue that a politician is trying to quickly and easily get across to the public.

Sources:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/twitter-permanently-suspends-trumps-account.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/30/politics/michelle-obama-george-floyd-statement-trnd/index.html