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Opinion: Social media gets people upset, says Massena woman

Posted 1/20/21

To the Editor: People are getting upset over things that aren’t even happening. Shouldn’t the sources that mislead people be held accountable? The author of “Opinion: Pelosi Seeks to Verbally …

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Opinion: Social media gets people upset, says Massena woman

Posted

To the Editor:

People are getting upset over things that aren’t even happening. Shouldn’t the sources that mislead people be held accountable?

The author of “Opinion: Pelosi Seeks to Verbally Neuter Our Language” got angry based on what she heard. The Fox headline, “Gender Terms Banned Under New House Rules”, was circulated on Facebook and Instagram.

Republican Kevin McCarthy tweeted that the Democrats “won’t let you say gendered words like father and mother”. Those are distortions of a simple fact. Some words in the written House Rules were replaced by more generic ones. No one is banning gender words in speech or writing. But headlines designed to rile people up, followed by a flurry of social media posts and reposts have everyone in a tizzy. (That’s how the lie that we can’t say Merry Christmas got started.)

For four years, people have embraced anonymously created websites and unregulated social media as factual. Social media, not monitored for validity, credibility or motive, has caused millions of Americans to latch onto the idea that “secret plots” are embedded in the government intent on taking away citizens’ rights. Media sources and politicians shamelessly fueled suspicion and fear by repeating that Covid was a hoax and there was evidence of voter fraud.

We have visual evidence of what happens when non-credible sources are allowed to spread fiction as fact. For the first time in history, people believed they needed to “save America” from “evil forces” by literally storming the Capitol and Republican politicians believed they needed to stage a coup to stop election certification.

Isn’t it time that we hold social media, and those who irresponsibly repost, accountable for getting people upset about things that aren’t even happening?

Martha Hodges

Massena