SOC Final Project

Social media has a significant impact on politics, particularly in terms of political messaging and campaigning. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are used to reach and engage with audiences, with campaigns employing staff specifically dedicated to creating social media content. These platforms allow campaigns to target specific demographics and tailor their messaging accordingly. However, social media has also contributed to the polarization of political parties, as extreme viewpoints are amplified and debated on platforms like Twitter. Algorithms play a crucial role in shaping the content users see, often reinforcing existing beliefs and creating echo chambers. While algorithms can provide personalized content and enhance user experience, they also contribute to the increasing divide in politics. Social media platforms face challenges in striking a balance between content moderation and free speech. Additionally, the mainstream media's influence, with different network So today I'll be talking about how social media affects politics. I'll be doing an extended interview with my brother Nathan and he'll introduce himself now and what what he has done. I have been to Michigan Democratic Party conventions, political clubs here on campus at the University of Michigan as well as back home in Clarkston. I will be in D.C. next semester working in Congress. Okay, cool. So first thing I want to ask you, so in the campaigns like that you worked for, what were like the social media aspects of it and were you involved with any of them? Yeah, definitely. So social media is a big part of political messaging and campaigns. Every campaign I've been on, there was a certain staffer that was paid to write social media, social media advertising, social media posts. It's a way for campaigns to reach the audience and get their message out. I was not personally involved in making posts but I saw this deal. I was in meetings where they talked about social media. So that was part of it there and it's a very important part of campaigning and political messaging and social media. Another thing, was there like any, I guess from the visual aspect or I guess audio as well, was there debates at all with Andy Meisner, for example, one of the people or no? Debates about what? Different subject matter? Yeah, there was always discussion about how to formulate our messaging, the right way, how to make the messaging. We targeted certain people, so we'd run an ad in Pontiac, we'd target the people in Pontiac, target, create the ad for that purpose around certain things, we'd target certain ads. If something significant happened in the news, like the abortion ruling by the Supreme Court, that overall rule would be waived, which allowed abortion to be illegal in states. So we wanted to make it illegal. We made our messaging around abortion, ran an ad about abortion. Was there things like that happen all the time where you're messaging things in order to get the highest votes? Yeah, so were those like ads and stuff, were those put on social media as well? Yeah, they were put on social media through Facebook. Things like that. Was Facebook the only social media app that you think was done? Probably advertised on, Facebook was the main one, but if I recall, probably advertised on Twitter. Okay. Maybe Instagram too. Do you think that's because you were targeting a specific audience? Yeah. I guess being the more older, probably. Yeah, yeah. I forget, I mean, TikTok wasn't as big of a thing back in 2020 and 2018, so we weren't really advertising on TikTok. Yeah, and I think Facebook, that's more of like a family, I guess, and not as much friends or like random people. Facebook and Twitter are definitely more political as well. Just like Twitter. Yeah, speaking of Twitter, that's what I kind of want to move to next. I think, personally, from what I've seen, there's been a lot of kind of extreme opinions on social media, and I was wondering if you felt the same way that there's, I guess, that social media, I guess you can speak about specifically Twitter if you want, but helps enable extreme opinions. Yeah, that's certainly true. So it's been a very, the political parties have moved, have become very polarized with their views. Back in the day, actually, the parties actually were close to ideology, with their ideology, and actually worked together in Congress. Now, they don't really anymore, and part of that is because of the social media messaging that amplifies extreme viewpoints. And that's the big thing about Twitter, and now I should say X, with that, is that, you know, extreme viewpoints are amplified, and they are, you know, with the algorithm seems to quite extreme viewpoints out there. Twitter is kind of a big forum where people are always debating and going back and forth, and, you know, definitely Twitter has been a place, and especially now, where I think Twitter's a lot less moderated with the new, with Elon running the show, there's definitely been an increase in extreme views being amplified on the platform, which also just leads to polarization in the political parties. Social media is definitely dividing people politically. Yeah, so that was another question I wanted to ask, like, based on Twitter, do you think that the increase of uncensored material that is kind of like coming through, like, obviously, you know, the good part that they argue is the fact that there's more, like, less censorship on certain things that are probably good that are being shared, but also the more negative things as well. I guess, any more comments on that? Yeah, so the big thing is with these social media platforms, with Twitter, and so they have an algorithm, so you can, so, for example, like MyFeed, you know, I like, for example, I've been liking some more stuff about, like, D.C. lately, and now I get a ton of tweets about Washington, D.C., I've been getting a ton of tweets about their stadium move, they're going to move the two teams across the river, most likely, and I've gotten a lot of tweets about that in my feed, I'm not even following those accounts, so it shows you how the feed is set up to get, you know, what you're liking, so if you like an extreme post, you're going to get more extreme posts, if you like a right-wing tweet, you're going to get right-wing tweets, if you like a left-wing tweet, you're going to get left-wing tweets, so even for me, I mean, I follow mostly left-leaning Democrats because I work in Democratic politics, so I get left-leaning tweets and I get left-leaning political views, and if I like more extreme tweets, I'll get more extreme tweets, so it's kind of a self-fulfilling thing with the way the algorithm is set up, so it's definitely dividing people on, especially, I don't have the data on it, but I'm sure it's even more so now on Twitter, because with Musk, he's ushered in, you know, he has censored things a lot less, he's unbanned Alex Jones, and unbanned, you know, Trump's back on the platform, but he doesn't tweet anymore, but things like that, or, you know, when they had a certain moderation in the past, they don't now, people can argue whether that's good or bad, but, you know, there's definitely an increase. Yeah, so you brought up, like, algorithm a few times now, because that's something that I did want to talk about, it's something that we discussed in our social class as well, I think, personally, like, from TikTok, I think that's the most, like, impactful algorithm I've seen, especially with TikTok, I think they introduced, like, the For You page that will suggest things on your page, like, not only from what you like, but also, like, the amount of time you spend viewing a post, and if you save it, lots of different aspects, so, I mean, you kind of already talked about it, but just, like, algorithm, I think, with political, like, ideas, do you think that causes people to be more open-minded, because they might get different viewpoints, or do you think that kind of just makes people more polarized? I definitely think it makes people more polarized, you know, as time has gone on, we've gotten more and more divided, and social media has not helped with that, I think social media is a big cause why we've gotten more and more divided, I think our politics has changed as well, drastically, since 2016, as well, and I think social media has definitely kind of emboldened, you know, people, and, of course, there always is a debate about, you know, free speech, and what is and isn't free speech, but, you know, on these platforms, you know, you can see some pretty bad things, and, you know, it's definitely not helping things, and people can, I mean, not only that, with even politics, people can be very, you know, hateful on social media as well, and these messages can spread, if, you know, people are being anti-Semitic, or racist, or whatever, social media kind of magnifies that, and, you know, people can say very hateful things that can be seen by a ton of people, and so that's kind of a piece of it, too, where these algorithms are so, so good, they're so good, especially TikToks, where if you like a post, or if you save a post, you know, it's just that the algorithms are so good, and it keeps you hooked, and you keep seeing the same stuff, you know, same stuff over and over and over again. Yeah, so, I guess my question with algorithms is that, do you think, like, it's a bad thing, or do you think it's a good thing, because I personally like algorithms just because they give me better content, that I'm more interested in? Yeah, so the purpose for these apps, I think, they're a good thing for the app and the user, the external effects of it I don't think are good, measuring that trade-off is difficult, but I think for how they're, I mean, an app's goal is to keep the user on the phone as long as possible, so they can interact with ads, interact with posts, and if you're getting content that you like, it definitely helps that. I think those are, you know, they could improve in content moderation, but it's a very difficult balance with free speech, but I think as, you know, technology gets better, as AI gets better as well, and it's already so good, you know, things will improve on that front. And I don't think social media is the main, I don't think it's the only reason why politics is so divided now, I think there's a lot of different reasons for that. I think the news media is now the reason, the news mainstream media is very divisive, and people have their networks, if you're left-leaning, you'll watch CNN, or if you're right-leaning, you'll obviously watch Fox. So I think that, I think the fact that we have different networks for different, kind of presenting different viewpoints, you know, leads to that as well. Yeah, so another thing that has like really, I've seen, grown is people who are involved with, you know, a certain viewpoint or party, and they kind of like, I think there's a big business now of making your own content and opinions, like people like, I'm just thinking of right-wing people, but like Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, because I see those people on my For You page all the time. How do you think that has changed the landscape of social media for politics? Yeah, so technology has definitely made these influencers able to profit off being like political commentators instead of just being on the mainstream news, and therefore they're more willing to be more free to say what's on their mind. Because if you're on TV, you're restricted by the FEC, and you're restricted by, you know, exactly what you can say and not say, and so these people, they don't really feel the need to be politically correct, as they would say. So they made a big business out of that, and because of that, that's also amplified, kind of more views that you, people kind of were afraid to say in public, but now, you know, these people are saying it, so now I can say it, and, you know, they have millions of viewers, so this shows that I'm not alone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it just kind of goes down that whole thing. Yeah, and I think that's another thing where it can be like a good and a bad thing, because, you know, people won't be censored to say certain things, but also I think there's a sense of fake news that is tied in with that. I mean, I see it all the time, like someone will post something, and people will comment about it, and then it takes a five-second fact check, you know, to know that it's not true, but people in the comments, like, they're so down these rabbit holes. That's another thing that we talked about in our class, kind of with those algorithms, how you just keep going down and down, like these, it gets more and more extreme, and so when these, like, people see anything that's from something that supports their viewpoint, they kind of just believe it, and then on the contrary to that, they'll say fake news about everything else, but they won't check into anything they're actually... Right, exactly, and the thing with the independent media, so Alex Jones, for example, you know, he put out a video many years ago, shortly after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, and was saying that the whole thing was a hoax, and that, you know, the children didn't actually die, and he has filed millions of, you know, he probably has millions of views, so because of that, him saying that, other people were now saying that, and it became kind of a very dangerous conspiracy theory. He was later sued by the Sandy Hook families. Okay, that kind of shows you how kind of the extreme of these independent people having fake reaches on social media, as things get spread, that's just simply just are not true. Obviously, Sandy Hook was not a hoax, but, you know, things can get spread out on social media, and people can start believing things that just are not true or that fit a certain narrative. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big thing now with that is, like, Israel and everything with that situation, like, AI-generated pictures of, like, whatever you want to say, like a dead baby, and these, like, far-right people who, like, have these, their own platforms are, you know, using this as evidence, and then, like, it doesn't come out until later that's fake news. Like, I haven't seen anything like it, because I think this is the first time where, like, it's been heavily divided, and so you've seen AI being used to prove certain opinions. So how do you think, like, do you think AI will be regulated on, like, social media platforms? Or, like, what do you know of that they're doing now to, like, combat this? Yeah, I think AI is very difficult to regulate, because you don't know if something is... I have seen photos as well, you know, put out by both sides of the conflict that you don't know if they're actually true or not, because of the AI. People are saying they did a fact check on it, and they, you know, used a template of a photo from something else, or there was a video of something, and it was actually from a different conflict, not the conflict in Gaza. So I don't know. You never know what... So it makes it hard to say. You don't know what to believe, and you don't know if you can believe any story. If you're just being bombarded with photos and videos, that's just not true. So it's that sort of situation. But, yeah, AI definitely needs to be regulated. Media companies also need to be regulated by our leaders as well, but the issue is a lot of them don't understand AI, so it makes it difficult to write regulations. You know. Right. Because I remember they had the TikTok CEO, and they also had Mark Zuckerberg up on the hill a year or so ago. Right. The people at the time, most people had no clue what they were talking about, so that doesn't help regulations when you have our leaders who are definitely of the older end who don't understand this sort of thing. Mm-hmm. Another thing is kind of about, like, let's say, like, law enforcement tracking people through social media because of their political opinion. Like, do you think, like, that stops a lot of people from tweeting something or not just because, like, they can make some different account? What do you think about that? Yeah, so, a lot of these social media platforms, it's kind of hard to track who's tweeting what because people tweet under pseudonyms all the time. They don't tweet under a real name or their private account or they have certain, like, groups or they have a certain, like, this, you know, so many different things. So it's very hard to track exactly who's tweeting what. Some people tweet under pseudonyms all the time because if they're tweeting really controversial things, they don't want their name attached to it for employment issues and school issues. So, you know, it's that sort of thing. So, you know, it's a very difficult situation. But, yeah, I think people, I mean, people can find, people have found their ways around that. But, yeah, it's difficult. Yeah, so, we've talked about a lot of, like, negative aspects, you know, the effect on social media. So I kind of wanted to switch it, like, any experience that you had, I mean, like, you obviously had to get into politics from something, right? So how did, like, what are some positive impacts of social media, like, with politics that you have experienced or just in general? I think social media makes politics more accessible in the sense you know what's going on. You know, since with the internet age, you get to know about things a lot quicker. Twitter, you see people, you know, the Congress people are always tweeting, so you can even interact with them. I mean, even a key example of this was, you know, like when Trump was on Twitter, even though some of his tweets were not good, you got to see kind of what was happening in his administration. So whether you like Trump or not, it's important to see what the President's administration is doing, what they're working on for the American people. So it's good in that sense. And you get to see what your leaders are doing closely. You get to interact. There's a more free, just an exchange of ideas. You get to see kind of Twitter. You get to see different people's opinions on things. Look, I've been really interested in, you know, they announced that they're, the owner of the Wizards and the Capitals announced that they're probably going to move the team to Virginia. So I've seen a lot of stuff on Twitter about it and people interacting about it and people talking about what the plan is actually. And I've learned a lot about the development plan and also about the concerns about the plan. You know, that's something that's really interesting to me to see. You know, see what's happening with the city before I come. So, so just seeing that and seeing like, oh, I got to see all the details of the plan and also all the concerns about it is very interesting to me. So you get to see stuff a lot quicker. You get to see stuff a lot more detailed. So it definitely helps with that. It makes politics more accessible. You get to be able to see like what our leaders are doing. Yeah. And speaking of kind of like, you know, people, more people being exposed to politics through their social media, I think people are starting to like challenge the government per se. And I know there's been like talk about, you know, like the government and like about, you know, working with Facebook or like Twitter per se, like in the elections of maybe censoring stuff. Is there anything that you know about that? I know there was a report out that Facebook was talking with the, I guess, colluding or some of the Biden administration regarding suppressing anti-vaccine, COVID vaccine rhetoric. You know, I'm not going to get into the merits of whether that was good or bad, but, you know, you have to be careful in these situations. These companies are so powerful about impeding on free speech, especially whether the viewpoint is right or wrong. You just got to be careful. Of course, there are limits to free speech in this country. We do have free speech, but there are limits to free speech. And free speech also means, what free speech means is punishment from the government regarding your speech. You know, I could say certain things that could not get me in trouble by the government, but could get me in trouble by my employer or my university. So, even if something isn't... And Twitter and Facebook, they're private companies. And Twitter and Facebook both have advertisers. And these advertisers don't want to be on the same page as stuff where there's a lot of hateful content, where they're next to hateful content. That's the concern of the advertisers on X lately. Elon Musk has been losing a lot of advertisers because they're concerned about the content that's on the platform. So, it's that sort of thing. So, it is a balance. So, when you get the government involved, then it's a free speech even dicier. But overall, you know, free speech is from the government. You're much more restrained in the speech you have from a private company. When you're, you know... Like, my university, if I say something that might not be illegal by the government standards, but could be, you know, not good, the university could do something. Yeah. So, or my place of employment, or blah, blah, blah, blah. So, there are consequences for your actions. And speaking of Elon Musk, I want your opinion, or I guess, explanation. Do you think his kind of take on social media and by, like, you know, buying Twitter and kind of how he handles it now, do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing for society, or a mix even? I do support free speech. The issue is, I think, his approach from a company standpoint is not good because he's driving Twitter into the ground financially because a lot of advertisers are leaving. And I do think, it's very tough. I always wonder where you draw the line with regard to moderating content. I think sometimes it needs to be moderated, even that goes further from what, you know, what the government would moderate. It's very hard to find that kind of content. It's very hard to find that line. And I'm a big free speech believer. I'm a big believer in free speech, even if something says something I disagree with or if I'm slightly offended by it. But there do need to be a line somewhere. I don't know what that line is. That's for the social media companies to figure out in consultation with their advertisers. I do think Musk has been a little reckless with handling things, but I just think that's just kind of just the way he is. He doesn't really care. I also don't think he thinks something's through. He recently was on an interview where he was talking about the advertisers and he was like, you know, F them if they leave or something. He said, F you to Bob Iger, who's the CEO of Disney. So I think that sort of thing is just kind of reckless because I think you can take a very nuanced approach to it. It is difficult, though. I don't know where to draw the line. I do think before Twitter is something too restrictive. I think it's something too not restrictive. But, you know, it's really difficult. In terms of a business standpoint, I don't think it's good. Okay. So we're about to wrap up. So is there anything else that you'd like to say before we end this interview? Just to summarize, I think social media, it has brought people in contact with one another and they get to stay in contact with other people. I do think social media is a very dangerous thing because it has definitely divided our country and that's not good politically because you know, imposters got to get stuff done with people who think differently and that doesn't happen much anymore. All right. Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Yep.