Small Town Filter Bubble

Small Town Filter Bubble

In today's day and age un-friending someone is serious stuff. If you get unfriended it basically means that my friendship with you is over. The only reason that I have ever unfriended someone is because of their fake, hateful, comments and articles. During the election I made the decision to delete my Facebook app, so my views of the candidates would not be skewed.

Deleting the app really helped me focus on what I believe in and forget what others around me are thinking. My filter bubble was corrupted with hate and fake news. Facebook can be a good place for political debate, like an Agora almost, but the debates lost meaning quick. People continually bashing others, and pushing their beliefs onto others. I understand that you might not agree, but that isn’t any reason to hate on people. The friends that I have on Facebook are predominately from my home town and surrounding small towns. Just because of where I’m from I am particularly susceptible to seeing a certain view on political discussions.

I am a fairly conservative Democrat, but  I still can’t stand some of the grotesque accusations that I see on my Facebook news feed. I know it seems dumb, but before I deleted Facebook off my phone I unfollowed nearly 30 people based on how well I knew them, and their political activity on Facebook. Even one of my friends got un-fallowed after a post that insisted Obama  must die. Isn’t that awful? I reported that post immediately, and I highly doubt that anything became of it. Above all I hate the disrespect that is shown to political figures, I don’t care if you don’t agree with every policy. When I was raised, I was taught that you treat all people with respect no matter what.

In the end my filter bubble did not affect my vote, but I could see in many circumstances where it would. Facebook can be a good source for news, but if the headline reads “Clinton Murders Babies” it more than likely isn’t reliable.