Network of All Social Media
In class we often used the example of Facebook to show a network where individuals share posts, friendship links, direct messages, and many other things. These interactions occur on many different social media sites. One detail that I had not previously considered was how those social media sites are linked, and their effects on one another. The New York Times recently ran a story discussing how YouTube’s election misinformation policies effected Twitter and Facebook (story linked below). According to the article, “YouTube’s stricter policies against election misinformation was followed by sharp drops in the prevalence of false and misleading videos on Facebook and Twitter”. I found this article to be extremely interesting, and could provide information and procedures that could be utilized in future US elections.
This is a perfect example to illustrate how the larger network is connected, and how regulation on one sub-network can influence the other sub-networks. Say each node on the graph represents a post that either a person posted originally, or shared from another account. In this case the edges would show where the person who shared a post, got the post from. If YouTube does not allow nodes of their type to be created that spread misinformation then it is impossible for those posts to be shared on other platforms. Even though YouTube has no regulation power over Twitter or Facebook, their decisions directly effect what is shared on each of those platforms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/technology/distortions-youtube-policies.html