Social media is not only influencing the personal lives of millions of people, but the presidential election and politics as well. In 2017, across all social media platforms, there were 2.51 billion users in the world (Statista). It is projected that that number will rise to nearly 3 billion users by 2020 alone (Statista). In America, over 80% of the population uses the internet for many various reasons (Pewinternet social-media-update). Since the number of people in America using the internet is increasing, so too does the number of social media users. As more Americans have adopted social media, demographics have shown that young adults and teens are not the only users anymore. As of today, “69% of the public uses some type of social media”
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The “majority of [American’s] – 62% – get news on social media” (Journalism). With 6 in 10 American’s using social media as their primary source of news, these major news networks can singlehandedly change the outcome of the election. “Social Media can … be used to spread propaganda and misinformation about political candidates” (Engadget). News networks like CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC all have the power to influence viewer’s perceptions on the presidential candidates. Since those news networks are more democratic and liberal than republican, they report biased news to favor their candidate and ruin the image of the other one. Political strategists from these major news networks feed viewer’s information that caters to their own interests. Furthermore, Supporters and influencers would intentionally create “misleading and fake reports … against the two candidates” so that people would be more inclined to vote for one candidate over the other (Engadget). During the 2016 election, Facebook was extremely scrutinized for the amount of fake news stories being spread around. According to Facebook’s monitoring tool, “the top 20 fake news stories collectively got more engagements — shares, likes, and comments — than 20 factually accurate news stories shared by mainstream news outlets” (Business Insider). The leading fake news story was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement,” and in second was “Trump's History of Corruption is Mind-Boggling. So why is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?” With two such differing articles being the most viewed as actual news on Facebook, one can only imagine how they changed the perceptions on how people view Trump and Clinton. Facebook and other social media sites are being used to spread lies about the presidential candidates to change people’s opinions on
The “majority of [American’s] – 62% – get news on social media” (Journalism). With 6 in 10 American’s using social media as their primary source of news, these major news networks can singlehandedly change the outcome of the election. “Social Media can … be used to spread propaganda and misinformation about political candidates” (Engadget). News networks like CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC all have the power to influence viewer’s perceptions on the presidential candidates. Since those news networks are more democratic and liberal than republican, they report biased news to favor their candidate and ruin the image of the other one. Political strategists from these major news networks feed viewer’s information that caters to their own interests. Furthermore, Supporters and influencers would intentionally create “misleading and fake reports … against the two candidates” so that people would be more inclined to vote for one candidate over the other (Engadget). During the 2016 election, Facebook was extremely scrutinized for the amount of fake news stories being spread around. According to Facebook’s monitoring tool, “the top 20 fake news stories collectively got more engagements — shares, likes, and comments — than 20 factually accurate news stories shared by mainstream news outlets” (Business Insider). The leading fake news story was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement,” and in second was “Trump's History of Corruption is Mind-Boggling. So why is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?” With two such differing articles being the most viewed as actual news on Facebook, one can only imagine how they changed the perceptions on how people view Trump and Clinton. Facebook and other social media sites are being used to spread lies about the presidential candidates to change people’s opinions on