This article focuses on the issue of whether people can rely on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook on social issues. According to this article, in the US a third of adults under the age 30 receive the news through social media and half of them are Twitter uses. This clearly establishes the development of new media has impacted individuals' lives, as they no longer need to receive the news by watching terrestrial channels but through social networking sites. As stated in a survey for last year, "Twitter is now an everyday news source for 55% of opinion formers" which shows that people are receive the news from unreliable sources.
Similarly, internet activist Eli Pariser states: "Instead of a balanced information diet you can end up surrounded by information junk food” — where everything we see online is only what we enjoy believing. On Facebook, unsurprisingly, most people’s news consumption comes through friends and family". This could suggest that users of social networking sites are passive consumers, as some only accept the information which has been posted online without thinking whether it is true or not. Likewise, Charles H Green (founder of TrusedtAdvisor consultancy) takes a similar view, as he argues that taking information from different individuals makes it harder for people to trust that source of information. For instance, he states: "I might trust my colleague enough to share her gossip about David Moyes but if she got the information second hand from someone in her “circle of trust”, then I can only half believe it". It is clear that people cannot trust Facebook or Twitter as a reliable source of information, especially when a school boy called Sam Gardiner fooled Twitter into believing that he was Samuel Rhodes. Significantly, according to a football journalist: "“With technology, when people chose to be dishonest they can do it at scale". To add, Twitter has become the primarily "place for wannabe influencers" and vitally among the public only "15% get their information from it.
To conclude, I agree to a great extent that Twitter and Facebook cannot be trusted as a reliable source of news for the public. This is because, online there are many perspectives on a specific issue and therefore it would not provide individuals with valid information on a topic. As a result, it could be suggested that people should rely on the news more instead of receiving the information though social media.
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