Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The twenty-first century is centered around technological advancements and modern-day forms of entertainment, namely social media platforms including but not limited to Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. This has had a monumental impact on society. Social media has allowed for information to quickly become accessible and for information to be efficiently conveyed to a mass target audience. However, social media can also specifically single out groups of people. Social media operates under the notion of freedom of speech, meaning that it can easily serve as an ethnocentric platform capable of spreading hate, resulting in increased discrimination, thus leading to depreciation of diversity. A recent example is when white nationalists carried tikki torches across UVA’s campus and shouted offensive words and threats. Many white nationalists and others who held similar beliefs took to social media to encourage others to join them in spreading hate and committing violent acts. There is also a large number of individuals in our world who are impressionable due to an absence of accredited facts. Social media has consistently distorted facts and created false illusions that people start to believe as truth. When truth is absent, discrimination can inevitably increase. This guided discussion is intended to make professors, students, and faculty consciously aware of the pitfalls of social media so they can help encourage others to use social media to help promote diversity and spread anecdotes of peace, rather than hate. The discussion will also help them learn to spot the differences between false claims and the truth. The aforementioned will be discussed in more depth and examples of news reports that are true and news reports that are false will be thoroughly examined. America is known as the land of the free, but it will never truly be free until all people are treated equally. We must reconsider our current state of freedom and try to come together to work towards the state of freedom that was envisioned by the constitution.