Only 1 in 4 Britons trusts social media. That鈥檚 according to the . It also found that 64 per cent of UK adults couldn鈥檛 tell real journalism from 鈥渇ake news鈥� on such sites, while 63 per cent said the likes of Facebook aren鈥檛 transparent enough. It is a .
That is a pretty damning verdict. And yet social media, whether we admit it or not, is a mainstay in most of our lives. For instance, 76 per cent of adults in the UK use social media and we spend an average of almost consuming it. That is a lot of time engaging with platforms we fundamentally don鈥檛 trust.
There are many reasons for the declining faith. One major blow was when Buzzfeed found that a slew of stories generating significant attention on Facebook were apparently being fabricated by .
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Facebook designed to counter this: deferring to users to determine what is and what is not fake news by allowing them to rank the quality and trustworthiness of news with semi-regular surveys. The network is effectively abdicating accountability.
鈥淲e could try to make that decision ourselves, but that鈥檚 not something we鈥檙e comfortable with,鈥� CEO Mark Zuckerberg , somewhat contradicting by former employees that its trending news section was curated by editors. However, beyond hands-on intervention, Facebook鈥檚 algorithm is ripe for exploitation, and programmed by people with biases and blind spots 鈥� and so, not entirely trustworthy.
Emotional manipulation
The trust issue goes wider though. In 2014, Facebook was criticised after revealing a secret project to influence certain users鈥� emotions by filtering their updates. Describing the process as 鈥渆motional contagion鈥�, the study saw the network reducing 鈥減ositive emotional content鈥� or 鈥渘egative emotional content鈥� appearing on users鈥� homepages.
And just last year, leaked documents revealed that Facebook , including users as young as 14 who were sharing words such as 鈥渁nxious鈥� or 鈥渙verwhelmed鈥�. The fear, although denied, was that advertisers could use this to target content towards those more impressionable and vulnerable.
Instagram has also had its fair share of controversy, having been accused of . Facebook, which owns Instagram, was previously suspected of similar snooping 鈥� again something it for both companies.
But as an Instagram user I can鈥檛 shake the feeling that something untoward is going on. I have noticed some decidedly spooky content in my feed after spoken conversations. On complaining of a migraine, I was immediately targeted with an advert for a migraine tracking app. And after telling my partner we had run out of herbal tea, an ad for a tea subscription service appeared. I have since blocked Facebook and Instagram from .
Add in the broad view that social media is and its feeds are as possible, and it is no wonder that faith in these networks is so low.
There is something to be gained from this though. It should push us to teach children to engage more critically with platforms and the content shared on them and it should encourage adults to seek news from reputable sources, not filtered via algorithm. It may also boost campaigns pushing for a digital life that works in our interests, such as . We don鈥檛 trust social media? Good 鈥� we shouldn鈥檛.
