I asked my mother, my brother, and a friend from school these five questions:
- Do you trust the news?
- Are our elections stable?
- What happened on January 6th
- Should social media be trusted as a news source?
- Should social media regulate free speech on their platforms?
These questions address my points of interest in the political landscape, and question the state of our free speech in a world ruled by technology. the vague questions about January 6th and our elections are meant to compare how people see these controversial events compared to how trustworthy they see the news networks.
My mother responded that she very much trusts the news network that she watches, that being NBC. NBC is not very extremist in any way, but tends to lean left with their biases. it is worth noting that my mother was a stalwart democrat before watching NBC. She than said that she didn’t know much about social media, but would probably not want it as a news source. when i explained the controversy regarding free speech on social media to her, she responded that regulation was an overall good thing, as she didn’t want people to be racist and homophobic. For the two more broad questions, she answered that on January 6th, a mob of trump supporters broke into the capital and tried to stop the election. she said this with certainty, and i followed up with the question regarding the election. she made a funny comment about Trump being a sore looser like a baby, and said that of course the election wasn’t stolen. Overall, my mother was trustworthy of more moderate news sources and had not believed many of the lies floating around the media. she didn’t know much about social media, but had a decently negative opinion of it as a news source. While she uses common sense to decide what to believe, she could afford to use some other news networks, or at least become more educated about different perspectives.
My friend from school who shall go unnamed had very different responses. when i asked about trusting the news, he said that they were not reliable in the slightest, as political biases had become too rampant to rely on any source. this was interesting, as he seemed to have an absolutest opinion on the definition of bias. By his logic, any bias at all would serve to make the information of any news network completely unusable. Basically to him, bias and lies were interchangeable. He had a better opinion of social media. he stated that he liked getting news directly from political figures and not have their ideas filtered through a news network. in that same vain, he had very strong opinions on the regulation of free speech on social media. He deemed the risk of shutting down “problematic” opinions too dangerous to make compromises for. Basically, his logic was that the value of free and open criticism of ones representatives outweighed the hate speech that would inevitably occur. His opinions on the election and on January 6th were safe if nothing else. He said that the elections could have been rigged because a system with that many moving parts would certainly be exploitable somewhere, and that January 6th was a protest that went very wrong. He didn’t think that there was foul play from former president Trump, but agreed that militia groups had clearly planned something beforehand. Overall, my friend was very suspicious of news outlets and overall didn’t trust journalism due to the political bias. He valued supporting individuals rather than parties, but said that he definitely leaned conservative. He was open ended regarding the last 2 questions, and had unanswered questions on both of them.
My brother certainly leaned democrat, but he is very different than my mother. when i asked him about the news, he said that he was skeptical about any political news he saw, but overall trusted the more moderate news networks. he made sure to point out that Fox News was essentially entertainment with no real substance. he said that he ended up getting a lot of political opinions from social media, but would not take definitive facts for granted. he however neglected to immediately verify the news, and just left it in the back of his head. while it is good that he acknowledges the unstable nature of news on social media, especially opinionated news, the lack of follow up research made the initial discovery of the news all but useless. when asked about free speech on social media he was quick to say that it needed to be regulated due to the amount of hate speech and disinformation. he was the first one to bring up disinformation, and that told me that he was conscious of the social media news environment. his answers were very simple for the next two questions, he said that the elections were the most stable in recent history and that January 6th was a riot incited by Trump. he didn’t provide much explanation other than it was pretty obvious. My brother is conscious about the ups and down of free speech, but he neglects to verify the unfiltered news he sees on social media, instead leaving them as hypothetical indefinitely.
I will admit that I was a little saddened that i didn’t get any response about using multiple news networks and how that could help filter through biases, but i liked the various responses about social media. i think that i may try and incorporate my friends idea of following individuals into my political diet, as i usually write social media off entirely as a source. i think this is a valuable assignment, i got to ask questions that i was curious about, and it was for more inclusive to me that looking at polls or opinions online.