Trump repeatedly reported social networks helped him won the elections and, in general, spread his ideas around the State. 

Mark Zuckerberg refused to acknowledge that, but Trump own declarations are a clear proof social networks served a big role in the 2016 elections. Evan Williams, CEO of twitter, said he was sorry if Twitter helped elect Trump. 

The Power Of Social Media

59% of Twitter users get their daily news from it

66% of Facebook users get their daily news from it

64% of users only get news on one site

Facebook has almost 2 billion users

Twitter has 308 million users

Every second, 7647 tweets are sent, 786 new images are posted on Instagram, 2627 people use Skype, 69615 videos are viewed on Youtube.

Those datas show us the power of social medias. We all use them, we all love them and most of us think they’re a small part of our lives and we can forget about them with no worries. 

 

But most of us are wrong. 

Social medias are a big part of our lives. They entered in our daily routines. We use them to chat, communicate with our teams, collaborate on projects, eccetera.

We also use them to say what we think about a candidate. 

Trump won thanks to their power

Just 8% of Republicans think news media are accurate. But, thanks to their bias, they think the news media they watch usually say the truth. The most popular channel among Republicans is Fox News (it is also the favourite channel of the President), and the most popular one among Democrats is CNN. Democrats are also more willing to say news media are generally trustworthy, while Republicans tend to blindly believe their candidate without even thinking about his positions.

The Republicans supporting Trump knew that Social Medias are powerful and they exploited them. Trump spent little money on paid advertising on TV and journals. He spent a smaller amount of money on Facebook Ads instead, and he got a lot of funding in return. He also got new followers and voters from Twitter - the social where he recently came out with his new invented word “covfefe”. 

Trump used his brand (the Trump Tower) and his lifestyle to speak for himself. He also built a certain reputation around him. A reputation of a non-politically correct person trying to make America great again. 

Social media helped him a lot in this. His racism, homophobia and islamophobia didn’t go unnoticed. Some people hated him for those positions and some loved him: but everyone was talking about him. And this was good enough to pay attention to his moves.

Fake news and fake statements were all over the place with Trump. And those news spreaded over the net incredibly fast. He benefited a lot from them: he had more followers than Hillary Clinton, his reach on Facebook was 3x times higher than the reach of Hillary and he gained 100.000 new followers on Twitter in one day. 

Why Facebook didn’t block them

Facebook, Twitter and Google are fighting hard against fake news. The simple answer to this is: they can’t. 

We don’t have algorhitms capable to understand what is a fake news. And, even if we had them, there would have been international fights about censorship on the internet. We should remember Anonymous (a famous hacker group) said they rule the internet, and they’re able to break into every high-security system in the World. 

Plus, Social Medias are not really responsible for what you post on them. That’s why ISIS can post on Twitter and Facebook has no rules to block sites like “immigrantsmakingcrimes” (non-existing website), big fake news sites created just to make money for their creator. 

Facebook recently released a guide to guard us about fake news, suggesting to always check the sources and the authority of every website we visit. It also will be less and less likely to accept furious advertising. Social media may also decide to do something to restrict the use of them to spread political messages during elections - but that’s just my hypothesis. 

Social medias are not dangerous

Facebook is a product. 

2 billion people bought that product. 

A lot of people would agree saying social medias are bad because they tend to favour a closed circle. For example, Facebook users will benefit sharing Facebook videos over Youtube videos. 

But Facebook solves our need to communicate constantly. That’s because it exists. Social medias, as the internet itself, can’t be bad. Because we are the citizens of the internet. Everything that exists online is there because someone needed it. 

If we’re afraid of them, then we’re afraid of human beings. Because they’re the one who developed them and used them for years. 

Instead of blaming social medias for our faults, why can’t we understand the ways to explore them better? I think a great study teaching us the power and cons of social media platforms is a must. We should all agree that this is not the future. This is our present. And we’re continuing to delay the truth: “nah, social medias will never overcome TV”. 

Social media already overcomed TV. Each big news media has his own social media profile. They’re a big part of our lives. It’s time to start using them properly and teach our kids how to exploit them to empower possibilities for all of us. 

PS: this is part of my exam in Italy (we have English as a mandatory subject in this exam). That's why I don't talk about Steemit. Obviously, I hope Steemit may become even bigger so it can help more people getting paid for the job they do in the society.

Facts and images sources: (source 1 | source 2 | source 3 | source 4 | source 5 | source 6 | source 7 | source 8)

Thank you for your time and happy steeming!