Social Media Has Incredible Power in Engaging and Illuminating People in Current Events

Which News Social Media Shares Is the People's Choice

A man, with a black shirt and arms spread, attempts to stand between
angry citizens and the Baltimore police. This incident went viral.

When the riots in Baltimore occurred, Twitter was once again a hotbed of discussion and coverage, alongside the mainstream media networks such as Fox and NBC. Additionally, almost every American city's metropolitan paper covered the protests as well. The coverage on Twitter, however, diverged greatly from the traditional news coverage. Twitter was the medium through which many smaller news outlets and individual users posted pictures of communities cleaning up after the riots. Additionally, multiple videos and pictures surfaced of citizens of Baltimore urging others to stop rioting, and citizens putting themselves in between protesters and geared up police officers. The fact that Twitter had a wide range of stories relevant to Baltimore, from pictures and stories of destruction and looting to uplifting news of citizens cleaning up and urging against escalation and violence, brought to attention the mainstream media for their coverage (or lack thereof) of the events. Much of the public, including president Obama, derided the media for neglecting to cover constructive protests that occurred before Freddie Gray's funeral. Obama stated that “The thousands of demonstrators who did it the right way have been lost in the discussion. The overwhelmingly majority in Baltimore have handled things appropriately.” CNN, for example, was accused of sensationalizing the violence and conducting "shallow" reporting. Slate wrote: "When cities spasm with violence for complicated reasons, that’s the only question CNN wants to ask." 

Social Media is an Important Tool for Protest, as Demonstrated in Ukraine

A graph of the frequency of tweets containing the hashtag #euromaidan.
The spike occurred simultaneously with police breaking up the protesters' camp

A another recent event stands out as both widely discussed and shared on social media and involving massive civilian protests. In the Ukraine about eighteen months ago, protests broke out and violence escalated in reaction to the then-president suspending an association agreement between the Ukraine and the European Union. Immediately, Twitter and Facebook became primary weapons of communication for the citizens. In fact, one of the most popular Facebook pages, EuroMaydan, gained nearly half of its 300,000 likes in the first two weeks of its inception at the beginning of the crisis. It was a central hub of information for those participating in the crisis--it contains updates on governmental issues, maps of places open for protesters to get refreshments, flyers to print and distribute, information on where protests would occur, among other valuable resources. The page was interacted with my hundreds of thousands of users as well. the Washington Post reports that the information updates that EuroMayden posted were shared about 230,000 times in those two weeks. Some of the most shared videos include police brutality, shocking scenes of violence that were ultimately the most effective in garnering international attention. 

In Ferguson, social media and protests had the same, symbiotic relationship. Many protesters had signs that linked various twitter handles and hashtags as a reference to important sites on the topic. And while social media coverage of Ferguson, Missouri was not as different from the media coverage itself, social media users engaged in important conversations about race relations and how the media expresses such in America. One example was the twitter hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown sparked important issues with media coverage and the photos they selected to air of Michael Brown. Many black Twitter users shared two starkly contrasting photographs of themselves, inquiring about which one would the mainstream media share if they were killed. 

Sometimes, Social Media Users Get It Wrong

While above were examples of social media being a positive tool in helping people join productive discussions about important events in our society, social media is dangerous for the same reason. On platforms in which people have the power and the audience to share their own content and discuss ideas, mob mentalities and collective ideas can formulate and dominate the chat. One example of this occurred in the aftermath of the Boston Bombing on Reddit. A sub-Reddit (a page within the site that focuses on one topic) called "Find Boston Bombers was set up, with the noble intention of inviting users to share footage of the marathon and hopefully figure out who committed the act of terrorism. The deed was labeled a "crowd-source investigation". 

Unfortunately, the crowd-source investigation ended up naming the wrong man, and with the thousands of detectives being citizens that had no code involving keeping the investigation confidential (obviously the nature of the investigation was just the opposite), innocent bystanders of the marathon suddenly had to fear for their safety in Boston. The end result was an apology: "I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information," wrote Reddit user Rather_Confused. "We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry. Several users, Twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken." Further analysis by some users concluded that it was a bad idea:  "Unreliable crowd-sourced material plus the media's ravenous desire for fresh information has proved a disgusting mix. Let's never ever do this again."

Social media in this instance hosted a frenzy of rushing to answers and ultimately putting innocent lives potentially at the hands of vigilante justice, although it had the noble intentions of gathering clues and suspects to most likely aid the authorities. The manner in which the participating community arrived at two or three distinct suspects that were ultimately completely innocent is analogous to the findings of a recent study done by professors at Beijing Jiaotong University. The study showed that on Twitter at least, upon the breaking news of an event, one opinion "stabilizes" very quickly and continues to dominate the conversation without much deviation. This is evidence of a collective social phenomenon that infiltrates us not only when we are fed information but also when we produce it ourselves. In this way, social media mirrors everyday social cues that we observe when group interactions occur in person. Groups tend to agree on topics and separate from those who differ in opinions, and collective conscience tends to be a repeatedly observed phenomenon. 

Social media may fall short of its potential in allowing each user to form complete opinions about ideas and events that are largely uninfluenced by their peers, but it has proven to be a tool useful to connect the world in significant ways. When social media becomes a part of current events in the world, it usually illuminates multiple sides to the story, leading to the absolute and unfettered truth for every user to see. This phenomenon is becoming more and more apparent with the passing of major events and demonstrations in the day and age.