The rise of social media has become a vast news source for many people, specifically for younger people. In a recent article, Pew Research Center focused on a survey where the researchers broke down different social media platforms based on the demographics. Looking at the ages between 18-29, the data shows a greater preference on apps such as TikTok, Reddit, Instagram, and X (Twitter) compared to older generations. This is definitely true for me.
I continue to get my news from a more traditional source – TV. Growing up with Univision, Jorge Ramos was always present, providing information on any issues worldwide and within the United States. Despite not understanding the seriousness of extreme situations, all I knew was that politicians could improve or worsen the people’s needs.
Although I had my first phone in 5th grade, I wasn’t really interested in social media apps yet. I just preferred talking to my classmates at school rather than through my phone. Fast forward to September of 2020, that’s when I finally decided to download X to see what I could learn about the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Scrolling through the app, my For You page had various tweets in regards to the election which engaged me right away.
Thanks to X, my sources started to expand. I added Pop Crave and TikTok. Pop Crave is an account that primarily focuses on pop culture but ever since they announced Joe Biden’s victory as the 46th president, the owners have been using their platform to inform on U.S. politics in an unbiased manner. Once I downloaded TikTok, I built my FYP on my interests, which included politics and worldwide issues. With a lot of scrolling, I found two accounts that interest me since their content is engaging and give a proper visualization on the topic they are talking about:
One of the accounts I found, “Inside with Jen Psaki,” is a TikTok account run by Jen Psaki, a former White House Press Secretary. With over 315.5K followers, Psaki regularly posts videos of her thoughts regarding any political events such as the presidential election, interviews with professionals, and any meeting, speeches that politicians hold. She also holds her content on MSNBC on Sundays at 9am and Mondays at 5pm.
I also started following Olivia Julianna, an American activist and advocate, who runs her own TikTok account regarding issues of politics and what occurs in Texas, as Julianna lives there. She is and uses “Gen Z” humor to provide our generation with a better understanding of what’s actually happening.
As my curiosity for knowing what’s going around the world continues to increase, I’ve continued to put more focus on my local news and searching “news” on Google. When I don’t have access to the TV or my phone, searching up “news” on Google shows me the “Top Stories” which focuses on worldwide issues and at the same time, I also get access to “Local News” which, obviously, talks about cases that occur near Monterey County.
While I continued to explore, my favorite and most trustworthy tool, X, had fallen at the hands of Elon Musk in October 2022. Ever since, there has been an increase in negativity, thanks, in part, to Musk himself. Many people, including myself, have lost faith in X to provide unbiased news.
He has shared memes that damage a community group’s image such as feeding into stereotypes or likes to add on to misinformation, and those that follow him, will unbelievably agree to it.
For example, when Musk linked an anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory in response to Mrs. Clinton’s tweet regarding Paul Pelosi’s, husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attack. He deleted his response but it doesn’t excuse the fact that it already had 24,000 retweets and 86,000 likes. Another case was when he agreed to a tweet that said “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
With this year being the presidential election, Musk has used his own platform to express his political views and beliefs, which are right leaning, as well as conspiracy influenced. During Trump’s 2nd attempted assassination, Musk quoted a tweet that ask “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” (@/cb_doge) in which he answered with “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” Musk also held an interview on X with Donald Trump in which, aside from talking about political information, they seemed to flatter one another with their goals and achievements.
As I’ve said, X has been a favorite tool of mine to keep updated on issues, but lately it isn’t as open as it used to be. A lot of people feel the same way as I do. NBC News stated that after Election day, “…X also saw 115,414 account deactivations…” which is the most amount after “Musk took ownership of the site…” This site also interviews a few people that joined other apps such as Bluesky or Threads to replace X because they felt insulted, silenced, unsafe, and overall, distant from the app. The site also shows an increase of Bluesky’s and Thread’s visits during the early days of November. If anything, it demonstrates how people are moving to other social media platforms due to the rise of right-wing tweets.
After the election, I have seen various tweets from Musk and his admiration for Trump. This is just the start, I don’t even want to imagine during and after his inauguration, X will flow with many distasteful tweets.
While doing research to write this story, I realized how much X changed for the worse. I still have my X account open just to check on any pop/issue updates and leave. But recently I’ve checked what Bluesky has to offer and its usage. At the same time, I think of just sticking with Tik Tok as my only social media app. I’ll definitely continue watching news from TV and Google news as I am now finding these two sources more trustworthy.
Regardless of what you use to get your news, make sure to fact check by using the sites listed here and here.
