Government Monitoring Social Media

533 Words2 Pages

"In today_Ñés world, the internet is incorporated in most aspects of our day to day lives. More recently, social media has become a prominent part of how we communicate and gather information. Whether it's a picture, political opinion, or a recipe, virtually anything can be found and posted on social media. Individuals also use social media as a platform to express and share their ideas with others. With the addition of its increased popularity, these factors make social media an extremely persuasive and far reaching part of the internet. Since social media has made the internet so influential, it raises concerns that the government should be more involved with monitoring its content. However, the government should not have the task of monitoring …show more content…

Everyone has a right to privacy as stated in the fourth amendment of the Constitution. People_Ñés personal information on their social media accounts would no longer be private for just family, friends, and followers, but the whole entire government. Knowing that the government is reading everything that is being posted, Americans would feel less comfortable sharing controversial and unpopular ideas on social media. According to a Pew Research Center study, 52% of Americans were somewhat to very concerned about the government monitoring the internet. Corroborating with this data, the American Civil Liberties Union believes that the circulation of new ideas would be put at risk from self-censorship as a result of internet monitoring, as well as leave some for the government to falsely survey or prosecute individuals based on their personal views shared online. Knowing that the government is reading everything they are saying, an individual could stop expressing their views and self-censor themselves out of fear of being flagged by the

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