Post Truth Politics Summary

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As Maya Angelou stated, “people will forget what you said or did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Politics has entered an era of “post-truth politics” where feelings often outdo facts more freely and politicians tend to get away with much more fiction. This era is influenced and reinforced by social media and technology. “Vibrant social media are often a power for good, allowing information to spread that would otherwise be bottled up.”1 However, fake news has been prevalent in the media due to the “many users that share such content without thinking twice, let alone checking to determine if it is true.”2 It is arguable that “post-truth politics” and fake news media can contribute to the survival of a civil society. In …show more content…

The “post-truth” era of politics has become more evident especially with the election of Donald Trump. Trump disregards the authenticity of his words as long as they are relevant and appealing to his voters. This is supported by Stephen Colbert’s idea of “truthiness,” which describes the idea of politicians who do not care. “Truthiness” explains how politicians will state what they feel is right or should be true rather than accurate facts. Society forgoes critical thinking, relies on feelings and tends to instinctively accept the information that they are told rather than seeking out the truth. A fact checking website called PolitiFact “has rated more of Trump’s statements ‘pants-on-fire’ lies than of any other candidate.”3 This is because politicians tend to insinuate – for example, when Trump says “a lot of people are saying…,” and question anything that goes against them rather than proving the accuracy of their facts. Furthermore, Putin’s political consultant stated that “if they were lying they took care to prove what they were doing was ‘the truth’. Now no one even tries proving ‘the truth’. You can just say anything. Create realities.”4 Consequently, “post-truth” politics corresponds with a failing civil society as people pick and choose what they feel should be true and support ideas based on their existing …show more content…

Social media has allowed people with the same opinions and shared interests to meet around a source of information and form groups based on their beliefs. A platform such as social media allows members of such groups to strengthen each other’s opinions by shutting out opposing information and allowing them to take joint action. For example, Google’s search algorithms offer users personalized results according to their internet behaviours and preferences. Facebook also uses algorithms to filter news feeds with content that is similar to what users have previously liked. Eli Pariser identified this as the “filter bubble,” which is the strengthening of “the tendency of netizens to form self-contained groups”5 which would be based on online content that they have previously been exposed to and interacted with. News organizations also play an important role in “propagating hoaxes, false claims, questionable rumours and dubious viral content, thereby polluting the digital information stream.”6 With the multitude of social media platforms and the various applications to share personal views and opinions, all the power is in the user’s hands. It is not comprehensible to remove said power and “gate keep” the information that is being shared. Thus, the survival of a society with the distribution of fake news in the media is

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