Smoke and Mirrors | How Social Media has twisted the truth
Social media like Facebook and Instagram I have found to be full of smoke and mirrors. Of masks worn to hide thoughts, feelings, circumstances and even the truth.
Often people live a lie as they don't want to be seen as pathetic or not doing well so they would upload only happy memories. Post pictures of themselves wearing something nice or going somewhere beautiful.
Filters and cropping have become standard tools to always put ourselves in the best light.
They would paint happy and loving relationships and edit out the bad parts, or the fact that their partner is cheating on them or they are cheating on theirs. I have known several people who were willing to show a facade that everything was doing okay and that they are together when in fact both of them were seeing other people.
Why would they go to such lengths? Any number of reasons mostly for the kids, or that it is expected out of them since they cannot get a divorce and the worse reason for me is because they cannot leave a loveless relationship because they will be judged a failure especially if a woman.
I remember counseling this young wife who was getting beaten by a jealous husband and she would often miss out work because she had visible bruises. She wanted to go back to her family home but her mother told her to stay and fix the relationship because it is her responsibility as a woman to make sure that home was kept intact.
I often have an overwhelming desire to knock the guy's teeth in whenever he fetches his wife to the office and brings her flowers and have lovely posts about how much he loves his wife.
Then there are those people who buy designer clothes or go on grand vacations and yet owes a lot of people money. I usually hate mediating in those cases because often than not things get nasty online with escalating posts that blind items people but ultimately erupt to full-blown tagging and name calling. The worse thing. I can't do anything since I don't have authority to dock pay or make people sign promissory notes as it is outside of company jurisdiction.
Then there is the proliferation of fake news. Spin doctors and Social Media managers are raking in the money in terms of getting their service to be paid by the highest bidder.
With almost everyone wired to one form or another of social media getting viral and shared again and again is what most people want to do. This is where these individuals who have studied patterns and moods of people to know what kind of psychological triggers will be used to come up with the wanted results.
One of the dark agendas of such entities is the spread of fake news meant to destabilize, create confusion or undermine authority or reputation of targetted individuals, institutions or even governments.
Social Media is just full of this from FUD news attacking Cryptocurrency and the Blockchain technology to pregnancy gossips and recruitment campaigns for terrorist groups.
In both Philippines and US elections there were clearly manipulation and censorship that happened that painted one party in a better light while casting fake news and gossip to another.
Social Media has the capability to control the information it shows to people and Facebook even admitted to conducting mood alteration studies of users.
One of the stupidiest fake news that I remember was that shared post that on a certain date if you did not share or post that on your wall it would give Facebook to use and own all images and post in your profile to do as they see fit. I remember seeing so many people doing that even Facebook issued a memo denying that it sent such a message (we know Facebook you already scanned and collected that)
The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal rocked Facebook with allegations of acquiring the data of people and unwittingly the data of their friends as well in order to profile and build models that would influence people by putting in their feeds certain ads that would push their buttons.
Anyone that has used Facebook to recruit knows this is an easily obtainable service that costs cheaper than traditional media or advertising with a better market scope.
You can easily configure target demographic, area, age and even social background and choose the sponsored ads that will appear.
Social Media is one of the best leads generations tools marketing uses. The amount of information that people are willing to divulge in Social media apps is unbelievable.
Even third-party app develops got into the action by creating those fun quizzes that will scan your profile and pictures and tell you what country you should live in or what famous star you closely resemble and we freely give our consent!
Armed with that information they can sell it to whoever wants it for whatever purpose and we gave the keys to it.
Is it worth it to give our information for a chance to post a picture or describe our day?
Google is even worst because it keeps a track of all our searches and websites we go to so you can just imagine the amount of data it has on us.
I wouldn't be surprised if one day we will have a social rating system based on all information gathered from us and can either be good or very bad for us.
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Hey Mav,
I too find it unbelievable what people post online! When did our society become so self-important and self-indulgent to believe that someone's morning coffee would be of interest to the entire world? Or doing laundry? or taking yet another duck-billed selfie? I find it all very strange.
I taught high school for years, (I think you knew that?), and I watched the onslaught of this nonsense creep up, little by little over the years. My last 10 years of teaching were done at a Fine Arts School, that included grades 1-12. I remember the first time I saw a little girl, in grade 3, taking a selfie with her cell phone. I still shake my head when I think about it, but with cells came easy access to Facebook, Instagram...all of it. Unfortunately, not many took the time to explain to kids that what they were posting was not private, and more importantly, was there forever. I remember having a conversation with my grade 12's once about something embarrassing someone had done at a party over the weekend. I said when I was young, the same kinds of things happened, but thankfully if was not recorded for all posterity, and most of us forgot about it by Wednesday. Unfortunately, these kids record and post everything, so no one is ever able to forget it. They don't really 'get' the significance of that.
My own son when he was 13 or so posted something on FB that was inappropriate and I marched him to the front door and asked if he would yell the same thing into a megaphone outside for the neighbourhood to hear? He was mortified and thought I'd gone crazy until I said that his written words would travel around the world in seconds! It was a wonderful light-bulb moment ;)
Privacy used to be a valued commodity, with generations literally fighting so we could have it and keep it. Today, for whatever reasons, people don't take it seriously and thanks to some good old fashion fear mongering, are lead to believe that cameras on every corner, and scanning our google accounts for terrorist threats, is all done in the name of protecting us.
And the sheep believe it!
(wow, I really got carried away with this comment! Your post obviously triggered something in me :)
Unfortunately, privacy is no longer something of value as we had that onslaught of big brother shows that invaded the idiot box for a couple of years and then all the reality shows and the proliferation of vblogs, Instagram and Facebook Live just made it easier for stalkers to follow their prey.
Makes me shake my head.
That story about your son is awesome and would indeed put into context what it means when we send out a mean tweet, post or video making fun of someone.
I was blessed that social media was not there when I was a young kid but unlucky enough to have some of my antics recorded and immortalized in the internet.
The irony is that some of that same information we give out on public platforms. They don't need to pay anyone to get such info from steem. The only reason they pay facebook or app developers is because they lock it up.
It becomes premium information since it is locked up and there are more info being collected as it analyzes the videos that we watch, the posts and comments that we like and share and even the logistical tag of where we are and what we are doing.
Alterations and filters are famous activity on Social Medias. True that most of the people are wearing mask to only show beauty of their life. And we do not know what is the real face behind the masks.
What's worries me the most is that even prayers are now posted instead of being said spiritually. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I am seeing people who believes, but I guess itnis better to be done personally. And I just hope that it is not just for the sake of winning other viewers' attention and hope that it's happening even behind the scene without "hashtag-whatsoever". Lol.
lol yeah I find this meme so funny.
Yeah I find so many fake people and fake news on social media lately. Oh man don't me started on people who do that to religion and yet you know they are mean SOB!
Hey @maverickinvictus,
I upvoted earlier but had to go offline. Before I found your post then, I'd just read through another that was debating whether Buddha tolerated meat eating.
The author kept repeating in the comments that the point of his post was that there are many more harmful things people do than eating meat. Hating, judging etc, etc..
Five hours later, these two posts sat side by side in my mind just now and made me smile.
Matrix anyone?
Sorry for the late reply!! I'm so swamped with comments haha but I'll get there
That is very interesting point indeed. we as humans have the capability to do a lot of harm but we also have the ability to bring much peace and happiness.
you cover so many things and portray them so logically, you cover all bases. Social media is a reflection of who we are as people, who we are as a society. I don't think it has created anything new, only that it has provided people another outlet avenue. These same people were doing the same things in other ways. However, no one can deny that social media's instant nature has made this a much larger problem than it previously was.
Social engineering has always been part of election campaigns, now that we are readily giving these companies so much of our data that it's only logical for them to utilise that. No body can control so much power without using them for their own benefit.
Indeed it is another avenue that often results in the content being broadcasted in the world wide web and with a bigger audience.
Just think of slut shaming, This before the advent of social media was just in that school or neighborhood but now it can be done in social media and the effects are more wide reaching and is forever in the net.
I shake my head when I see dirty laundry paraded in posts.
Yes, exactly
Due to the easy access of such information, without verifying what we read or because one side of the story is presented, trial by publicity can and will destroy. We really should be more careful in what we post online especially when emotions are high. Regret comes in the end when it's too late.
I always tell this to people don't air out your dirty laundry in public and think before you click and share.
Especially when emotions are high. When we are angry, we tend to make mistakes which result in more mistakes.
Facebook is evil. Every now and then I would see posts of some celebrity that died and it wasn't even true. News stories that are still going around when it was first posted in 2011.
And those quizzes you talked about, I did one just to see a few weeks ago. It posted the results on facebook without even asking me the permission to put it there. Just popped in there. I gave everyone warning that I wasn't the one to post it and for people to be careful. People still do it. They are facebook zombies and are not waking up.
Yeah with the amount of data mining they have done without our permission, to the mood altering experiments that they do and the accusation of filtering presidential news to favor one candidate.
Time we take back our privacy.
It is very scary indeed! I'm in the process of deleting my facebook Just need to collect some contact info form people tat live far away,and then it's gone =). I will keep instagram just because I like photos, but I donn't use it much to be honest.
I'm the opposite I keep instagram to just say hello to gorgeous women haha but have rarely use FB now that some people think I have been kidnapped haha
LOL =) My faceobook is deleted now =) I feel free again
I to find it amazing how many people get sucked into the spam post the fake news and all the other ridiculousness that happens on facebook, not to mention the stupid quizzes that people do and give random sights access to all their info and then complain about it being used
I shake my head everytime I see one of those quizzes from third party vendors and giving them full access to your info.
Ohh yes you and me both especially when its friends or family that should know better
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