Stockton- Censorship exists everywhere in our modern world whether it is visible to the eye or not. It is presented to us in person but mostly on social media when it comes to posts or certain words that aren’t encouraged online. Social media has come a long way since it was first introduced and has developed tremendously. At first, social media wasn’t as censored but over the years, the people who manage these platforms have cracked down leading to a huge amount of censorship. They have tried to censor social media by not allowing people to post certain things, limiting the amount of political posts on someone’s feed, and creating options such as reporting an account for anything inappropriate. As this new year starts, a new change will mainly be made to Facebook and Instagram which will then impact other platforms attached to those such as threads or messenger.
According to Mark Zuckerberg who is the CEO of Meta Platforms and Facebook he states “We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” (nbcnews.com).
Mark Zuckerberg is the one in charge of this set change and wants to reduce what many people complain about today, “censorship.” Now, while censorship can be good for our society and keeps a significant amount of terrible information from people’s feeds, when the platform continues to make mistakes and censor too much, this may not be so good. Lately, facebook and instagram platforms have been censoring things that aren’t necessarily deemed bad and are a part of a person’s free speech. This change in censorship will help bring social media back to how it used to be without the fact checkers and complicated systems. Many may see this as a good thing and be enthusiastic about it due to the many benefits it does contain. Meanwhile, others may deem this as bad because now false information could be posted or there may not be enough censorship. Everyone will feel differently about this change and that’s the whole point of being your own person. Therefore, here are some different opinions about this change happening by Mark Zuckerberg that will affect many different platforms we use today.
The first interviewee is Savannah Nalls, a freshman who answered the question “Do you think this new change in censorship will affect you? How?”
She responded with “Yes, because not everything online is for my age group, especially twitter. There are kids who are a lot younger than me who utilize these apps and some of the things on them are not kid friendly.” Savannah also answered the question “Do you consider this a good or bad thing?”
Her response was “This is a bad thing because the censorship protects kids’ innocence and it shows them stuff they’re probably more interested in than the adult stuff.”
Savannah does not support this new change and brought up some negative effects it might have on social media or the users of these apps. Though these are Savannah’s concerns, many other people may have similar ones.
The second interview was Divine Arredondo, a sophomore who answered the same questions as written above.
To the first question she responded with “Yes I do because I get a lot of my information from social media and then I go and research it on my own. So when I go and find something online that isn’t real, especially when it is something serious it is irritating because misinformation is spread. I find it very common in Latino communities when social media says this person is doing this or that but in reality it’s not true.”
She continued to answer the second question with “I think this is a bad thing because social media is already messy and there are already cons when it comes to posting stuff and freedom of speech.” Divine gave her opinion and does not support this change in censorship. She continued to bring up the cons it can have on social media users’ lives.
Here are two different opinions but there are many different viewpoints on this change everywhere depending on the person. Social media is a big part of our current society and continues to develop tremendously everyday. There is always a new update or something new to do with your account that many of us eagerly try. Therefore, this change will have an impact however whether it is a good or bad impact is up for you as part of this society to decide.
