Social media has had an extreme and radical impact on society over the last decade. Some of the largest and most impactful social media sites are twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. One of the biggest impacts social media has been a huge part of is fake news. The article “Who Will Take Responsibility For Facebook” on Wired, speaks of how seriously fake news and personas can be taken on social media sites. The article speaks of how it played a great part in elections in the United States, which is insane if you’d ask me. The article doesn’t speak too highly of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. The writer states how the well-known site has been a “Clearing house for propaganda, fake news, and fraud accounts. More serious still: Facebook may not just have been vulnerable to information warfare; it may have been complicit”. The President even reached out to him trying to plead for some sort of understanding to what wrongdoings and exploitations could be fulfilled through Facebook. Unfortunately, it seemed like Mark Zuckerberg could care less.
Although Facebook is one of the largest and well known social media sites, another site that has a plethora of uses and members is Youtube. Youtube is thoroughly spoken about in an article on Henry Jenkins entitled, “Taking The You out of YouTube”. The writer speaks of the “interesting” buyout of Youtube by Google. He then takes into account two written responses. One of those responses is by John McMurria, a professor from DePaul University at the time. The professor speaks about the reaction the Youtube community had to the purchase. He went on to write about how some reactions ranged from comment and videos thanking the creators of youtube for their visionary skills and others scared that Google would “destroy” youtube. Just like Facebook, Youtube is mocked a bit for some negative impacts the writer chooses to speak about. The main one is the lack of diversity in the most popular videos.
It seems all social media has had a plethora of impacts on society and the entire world. The article on New York Times, entitled “The web means the end of forgetting”, speaks of the impact social media has on memories people have. It seems people don’t have to rely on physical photos or scrapbooks anymore to look back at memories because you can simply upload videos and photos of the great times you’ve experienced now. It seems as if memories are becoming more of an internet thing than a mental one.
