Social media is a platform through which hate can vigorously spread throughout the world. As Lady Gaga says, it is the ” toilet of the internet”. Hate has always existed, but social media has made it easier for hateful people to connect and infect others. Social Media has allowed hate groups like the Alt Right  to increase their numbers and expand their hate virulently. At the same time social media has been a method for positive revolutions to flourish, such as the women’s march, LGBTQ rights, and the Arab Spring. Regardless, hate has become a prevalent disaster and social media will become an accessory in our own demise. Social media needs to be looked at with realistic and sober eyes, and designed with our collective good in mind.

A host of intelligent, thoughtful, and well-read people and groups believe in the power of the Internet to support the spread of social good. There is plenty of proof to back that up: from the Arab Springs, to the rise of the #MeToo movement, to the global reach and influence of groups like AllOut; social media has accelerated positive causes. One of the earliest and most impactful examples of the benefits of social media is the Arab Spring. It began in Tunisia with the mistreatment of Mohamed Bouazizi by police and the government’s lack of response. Bouazizi’s subsequent protest by self immolation was the literal fire that lit a powder keg of political dissidence, which spread throughout the Middle East. The oxygen that spread revolutionary fire: social media (Benson 327-330). Past revolutions have been quickly shut down, and news silenced by state-controlled media. As a result of the evolution of technology, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, enabled this revolution to spread rampantly from one nation to the next. Bouazizi’s revolution in Tunisia jumped to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and beyond bringing a new form of protest and power to the people of the Middle East (Benson 331).  

While social media platforms have mobilized positive change and given marginalized groups a voice, they have also facilitated the spread of hatred and the violence it entails. Most recently, a man in New Zealand killed 50 attendees at two separate mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. However, what is most disturbing is that the attack was designed to leverage the power of social media, and to achieve mass distribution of the shooter’s hateful message. “The shooter apparently seeded warnings on Twitter and 8chan before livestreaming the rampage on Facebook for 17 gut-wrenching minutes. Almost immediately, people copied and reposted versions of the video across the internet, including on Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube.” (Lapowsky ℙ 1)  

Though efforts are still in their infancy, many of the tech giants like Google, Twitter, and Facebook, are trying to mitigate the spread of this kind of hatred through their platforms. They are doing this through a combination of platform “rules of conduct”, and both AI-governed algorithms and human supervisors designed to filter hate-filled messages before they gain viralocity. Unfortunately, even as these platforms attempt to deal with platform-spread hatred on their own networks, the worst of human nature is finding other dark corners of the Internet to breed and grow. A number of Internet developers professing to defend “free speech” have created sites like 8chan and Gab.ai on the web as well as the Dark Web. These websites that exist on an encrypted network are not accessible through traditional browsers, in order to give users of the web safe places to post about everything from anti-semitism to child pornography. “Gab has become the most visible of a collection of services catering to people mainstream companies such as Twitter and Facebook have rejected as too hateful, extreme or threatening in the posts as part of a crackdown on extremism.” (Timberg ℙ 6).

Hate has become a huge part of our society and is rapidly infusing into our culture. Hate is like a disease, and if we don’t cure it soon, it will prove humanity fatal. Our world  is creeping towards George Orwell’s dystopian society from his novel, 1984. The main character of 1984, Winston lives in Oceania; each week Oceania is at war with either of its two bordering nations. The citizens of Oceania are completely compliant to “Big Brother”. Big Brother is the unidentified totalitarian party that rules Oceania. One way in which the government keeps its people docile, is by implementing a psychological operation designed to increase the hatred of the population for the current enemy of the party. Fingers are pointed, and plethoric fury accumulates during the long awaited, “Hate Week”. This tactic sounds a lot like people’s’ impulse reaction to direct blame towards another person or group, in order to relieve themselves of their impending confrontation with their own issues. Another important aspect of Oceania’s society is the two minute hate. During the two minute hate, the citizens are forced to watch a film of propaganda being used against the enemies of the totalitarian party. During this event, the participants are given exactly two minutes to express their guided hatred of the enemies, one being Goldstein. This resembles our everyday lives; we sit at home, hide behind our screens, and concentrate hate on a subject that we land on while scrolling through our social media feed.

Social media has enabled the rapid spread of ideas on a global scale. Undeniably, some of these ideas are beneficial to humanity. They give voice to marginalized groups and enable the flourishing of positive, democratic ideals. But to deny the hatred that is also enabled to spread would be foolish and short-sighted. Hate has always existed, and social media has made it easier for hateful people to connect and infect others. Hate has become a prevalent disaster and social media will become an accessory in our own demise. The only soultion is to recognize the positive while realistically engaging the issues social media brings. Social media needs to be looked at with realistic and sober eyes, and designed with our collective good in mind.