Introduction
Nowadays, United States residents are concerned with presidential elections, creating a perception of a fight between two binary oppositions – Trump and Biden. As the nation prepares to choose its leader for the next four years, political activists are using more social media platforms to engage voters. This is an issue because it might spread misinformation and sway public opinion.
Some people say social media frames negative perceptions of candidates by spreading speculative or false information. Others say social media reveals an accurate national picture because more people have the chance to share their ideas. In my opinion, in this age of artificial intelligence, social media might disrupt the voting process, providing more polarizing content.
Social Media Impact on Presidential Elections
One reason I think social media might negatively affect the naturalness and transparency of the voting process is that false information that dishonors a candidate spreads quickly. As Tannen (2004) reports, expressing passionate opposition and hatred toward elected candidates fuels citizens’ engagement with politics, making it an integral part of the political process. However, in this digital era of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, posts are not entirely hateful but rather inaccurate.
For example, during the last elections, false conspiracy theories involved suitcases filled with ballots and beliefs in dead people voting, resulting in public riots (Swenson & Fernando, 2023). This means people still face digital information illiteracy, making them more susceptible to manipulation on social media. Therefore, the discredited nature of the social media realm should teach users to develop tools and strategies to assess data for trustworthiness.
Another reason contributing to the negative association between social media and the upcoming presidential elections is the application of artificial intelligence (AI) that deceives voters. AI will distort residents’ political views during the US elections for the first time in history. For example, a faked audio call with Biden’s voice asking voters in New Hampshire to refuse to vote already demonstrates the power of political speculation (Leingang, 2024).
This means that elected leaders and their followers can easily manipulate images, videos, and audio with just a few clicks, suggesting that new experimental campaign ads will be generated (Swenson & Fernando, 2023). Moreover, some platforms’ content-generation algorithms provide viewers with information that aligns with their views, resulting in confirmation bias. Hence, digital media might exacerbate political division, prompting citizens to engage in open conversations about politics in real-life settings.
Some people say that social media fosters transparent and open elections. They say that all citizens can express their positions and advocate for any elected official while quickly accessing information about their political positions (Murphy, 2024). The idea behind this assumption is to push people closer to politics, the topic they avoided for decades due to the agonism of warlike methods (Tannen, 2004). Their idea might be correct, but their arguments are invalid since they are based on a false dilemma fallacy, as the opponents acknowledge the existence of only two extremes of negative or positive correlations.
Their inference underestimates the likelihood of other possibilities and the possibility that social media might facilitate greater engagement while simultaneously creating more polarized views through misinformation and AI. Moreover, the opponents’ suggestion is built on a red herring fallacy or irrelevant points, since fostering public engagement without addressing their digital illiteracy also allows activists to manipulate their minds. Therefore, this argument may be disregarded, but recognizing social media’s positive and negative effects remains necessary.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that social media not only fuels political involvement but also positively shapes it. Instead, it might also undermine truthful elections, as voters face the spread of false information and social media algorithms that promote fabricated data and AI-generated content. It is important to acknowledge this issue because citizens should improve their digital literacy to distinguish between credible and unreliable sources to achieve better political outcomes.
References
Leingang, R. (2024). AI and misinformation: what’s ahead for social media as the US election looms? The Guardian.
Murphy, Hannah. (2024). Will ‘micro-influencers’ sway tight US election races? Financial Times.
Swenson, A., & Fernando, C. (2023). As social media guardrails fade and AI deepfakes go mainstream, experts warn of impact on elections. The Associated Press News.
Tannen, D. (2004). We need higher quality outrage. The Christian Science Monitor.