Week 4

In "Social media and activist communication" Poell and van Dijck write about the benefit of social media in allowing "ordinary people" to share their point of view in real time. This differs from the mainstream method of sharing and receiving news, which tends to be from large news stations, well established corporations, or similar entities, rather than pooling information from people who are directly and personally affected by the issue at hand. Poell and Dijck also speak about the affordances and limitations of social media as an informational tool, stating "Through technological features, such as ‘retweeting’, ‘liking’, ‘following’, and ‘friending’, as well as algorithmic selection mechanisms, which privilege particular types of content, social platforms shape how users can interact with each other through these platforms" (528).

This is something that I have found to be the case, too; even when "ordinary people" are sharing personal, informal perspectives, the perspectives which have the approval of the social media platform -- even if these are not necessarily the most beneficial perspectives to the activist movement -- will be favored and promoted. This has been an especially prevalent issue on TikTok, with the app oftentimes promoting untrue, potentially harmful information that goes extremely viral. These highly popular videos/channels can be genuinely helpful, such as these ones made by gynecologists; however, especially sensational videos tend to be promoted as they capture attention, which can be dangerous when they are being watched within the confines of the video with no further information provided. For example, this video with over a million views is promoting a product which is making impossible claims and is profiting off of the women's hygiene industry that makes sales by telling women that they are unclean.