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Social media companies can hardly claim to be caught off guard by the flood of falsehoods posted online as we head toward the midterm elections. It is, after all, some six years since the reach and amount of misinformation was first exposed in the 2016 presidential vote. So, if you were a schoolteacher and the companies were your students, how would you grade them on handling misinformation this time around?
If you are of the mindset that the companies have had plenty of time to get their act together, you might be tempted to flunk them across the board. If you see misinformation as an insurmountable problem, you might be tempted to grade a little more leniently.
We asked three social media experts – University of Arizona’s Dam Hee Kim, Michigan State University’s Anjana Susarla and Indiana University’s Scott Shackelford – to grade Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. Their nuanced and informed views produced a range of grades, but clear distinctions among the companies’ results emerged.
Also today:
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The process of conducting elections has become a focal point for misinformation.
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Dam Hee Kim, University of Arizona; Anjana Susarla, Michigan State University; Scott Shackelford, Indiana University
Misinformation has bedeviled social media companies for years, and the problem is especially consequential during elections. Are the companies up to the job as the 2022 midterm elections approach?
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Arts + Culture
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Rick Eckstein, Villanova University
The US National Women’s Soccer League was recently rocked by revelations of sexual abuse. But research shows that physical and verbal abuse is also disturbingly common in organized sports.
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Lucy Christopher, University of Tasmania
Shehan Karunatilaka’s Booker winning novel is a black comedy about the afterlife, a murder mystery, and a political satire set against the violent backdrop of the late-1980s Sri Lankan civil war.
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Politics + Society
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Marjorie Hershey, Indiana University
Voters trust their gut when they decide who an electable candidate is or isn’t. That may be a bad idea.
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Asafa Jalata, University of Tennessee
Leaders at the centre of the Ethio-Tigray war don’t believe in equal partnership. In their political cultures, winners take all.
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Science + Technology
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Iain Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder
What will it take for Ukraine to defend against the ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and explosive drones raining down on the country? The question is not so much what as how many.
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Environment + Energy
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Matthew E. Kahn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Bhaskar Krishnamachari, University of Southern California
Most households pay a flat rate 24/7 for electricity although the cost of generating it fluctuates through the day. Wireless technologies are changing that system.
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Health + Medicine
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Nükhet Varlik, Rutgers University - Newark
Halloween, with its mix of the macabre and the playful, provides a moment to reflect on how closely life and death are interwoven – especially in the COVID era.
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