Real Life Telephone!
When I was younger, I would play a game called Telephone. The game’s goal was to receive messages and pass them around without any changes to the message’s meaning or phrasing. Very rarely, when I played the game with my classmates, would we accomplish the goal. Telephone mimics our world with social media, as information is not always consumed and given properly.
Social media is relatively new due to the advancement of technology. It has increased networks worldwide, as people have found ways to build relationships with people they don’t see regularly. It’s also allowed for information to travel faster, which is beneficial in times of crisis. Although it has benefits, it negatively impacts the dynamic of information cascades when people choose to be distrustful and ignorant, intentionally or not. Their actions overall lead to misinformation and the deterioration of connections. Information cascades can be labeled as people making choices based on observing people. With social media, people are less obligated to be truthful because often there are no consequences for them. Unfortunately, there are long-term consequences as concepts lose value.
During social justice movements, there have been times when a part of their campaign would lose value due to misinformation. During Black Lives Matter, there was a period when people were told to post Black squares in support of the movement. This was known as Black Out Tuesday. Leaders of the movement did not promote this, and it is not certain who started this idea. However, the information spread widely and did more harm than good, as many people participated in it. Information needed to educate people was being covered by posts that shared no information. Unfortunately, things like this happen often.
Although we can not stop the spread of misinformation completely, we should take steps to do so. I have noticed many apps taking action on this issue. Apps such as X have been taking steps by labeling possible posts as possibly false before people consume and share them. We should also hold ourselves accountable for the information we consume and fact-check because not everything shared is true.
https://help.twitter.com/en/resources/addressing-misleading-info
https://www.wikihow.com/Play-the-Telephone-Game