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Editorial: Reliance on social media is often bad for public, systems that serve us

By Brandi Makuski

Hello, dear readers. It’s been far too long since we’ve talked. Let me re-engage you by telling you a story.

Imagine for a moment that an elected official from Stevens Point had traveled to another state to celebrate the opening of a business that wasn’t related to the city. Imagine that elected official submitting receipts for the gas—and getting reimbursed by the city for a percentage of their mileage, as though it actually were city business.

If this actually happened, is this a story you’d want to read about in your local newspaper? A balanced news article supported with context—facts, data, and quotes from the parties involved? Or would you prefer to see it without context—summarized in .gif form, or a meme, with hundreds of colorful comments by people who enjoy knocking others down on Facebook?

Or worse, would you rather learn about this without realizing you’ve done so, by seeing this elected official celebrate the business opening on social media, noting the event also took place on their birthday?

A news article requires a staff, trained in editorial best practices, to produce an objective article. Those staff members require a paycheck, produced with revenue from advertising and subscriptions.

A Facebook post requires zero training and may be framed in a very specific narrative or supported by a personal agenda without the public ever being the wiser—also known as “advertising.” Those .gifs, memes, or advertisements cost almost nothing to create and post, though any revenue they do produce ultimately goes into (Facebook founder) Mark Zuckerberg’s pocket.

The worst-case scenario, learning about this with a series of fun photos in a Facebook post without the backstory, can only be described as fake news: a fun cover story to distract the public from the facts.

Consider this: for those of us over the age of, er, 30, our parents’ behavior taught us how to “consume” the news. Without realizing it, we learned by watching our parents’ reactions to the nightly news, or seeing our parents read through a physical newspaper; which sections they skimmed over, which ones they read, and which stories caught their attention. They modeled civic involvement with their very reactions to different news stories. It was a shared experience.

As social media has taken a front seat in distributing information, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, that shared experience of “news consumption” is largely gone, limiting our exposure to the world to the silos we create for ourselves. Our reliance on social media platforms like Facebook has grown exponentially, and not really for the better.

There are times when social media is used for the public good: the storm of 2017 comes to mind. When many local communities went without power for a week or more following a powerful derecho in June 2017, hundreds of residents posted to groups like “You Know You’re From Stevens Point If” to offer free showers, use of electricity, or freezer space for those who’d been hit the hardest. Facebook was a lifesaver for many people during that difficult time.

But that was five years ago. Sadly, Facebook group pages still thrive as though we’re in need of immediate information—got a question about the building being constructed down the road? Ask Facebook. Curious why they’re tearing up your neighbor’s street? Ask Facebook. And what’s the holdup with a new Portage Co. Jail? Ask Facebook.

It’s worth noting that the administrators of these group Facebook pages are not required to vet the people posting or commenting to their pages, audit information that’s posted, correct inaccuracies, or require commenters to produce source information.

If any news outlet attempted that same route, they’d be sued.

So, never mind if the answers you receive are accurate. Never mind if the people answering your query are even in a position to know. Don’t worry if the person responding is actually the person they are representing to be. Never mind if a Facebook profile can be cloned or hacked. And who cares if the answers are being provided by someone who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol without our knowledge? Never mind if the why is just as important as the what.

And never mind if Facebook employs a very secret algorithm that determines what you actually do and don’t see in your newsfeed—which it does. Often, the pages I “like” or “follow” don’t show up in my newsfeed until two or three days later, and sometimes, not at all. We hear the same complaint from many of our readers.

Still, hordes of municipal agencies, elected officials, and business owners rely solely on Facebook, bypassing the Press entirely. In a strange twist of irony, many of those local businesses, elected officials, and municipal agencies laud their support for local businesses and encourage their followers to do the same—yet, most funnel zero dollars into locally-owned, independent news outlets.

Facebook has disrupted the flow of information from these official entities to the Press. This has to mean something in terms of how you—the reader, the consumer—get your news. It means you can seek out only the information that best aligns with your personal philosophy, and by “liking” or sharing the post, you become an advocate of the information, giving it credibility even if it’s untrue.

Educators: are you explaining this to our children in the classroom?

In terms of collecting information for news articles, it means the few reporters left in Portage Co. are often directed to an entity’s Facebook page for information, then having to call the entity back with follow-up questions before writing a story. By the time we produce a news story, you’ve already seen a post on the issue from your chosen demagoguery, and it’s that first post that sticks with us the most.

It also means fake news spreads much faster than real news, and many news reporters spend too much time chasing their tails. If I had a nickel for every false claim of a crime being committed somewhere in Portage Co., I’d be rich. Last summer, we received three messages asking about a body being pulled out of the river at Lower Whiting Park. Despite it being a claim all three said they’d seen “somewhere on Facebook,” no such incident ever occurred.

Take Facebook for what it is: an unreliable public relations platform. Consider it a newsstand rather than the actual news. You’ll be happier, and smarter, for it.