Where is the adult when kids are fighting ? What did politicians have done in order to prevent guns violence ? Is this the change that President Trump is talking about ?

Where is the adult when kids are fighting ? What did politicians have done in order to prevent guns violence ? Is this the change that President Trump is talking about ? Controversly of what he said before his election, he’s dividing the US population. On one hand, we have those who are for the guns rights and on the other hand, we have those who are against it like these courageous students who are fighting right now for a drastic gun reform. Unfortunately the biggest winners of this are the guns lobbyist who are controlling politicians. But after all why does politicans obey them ? Because they receive millions and millions dollars from them that’s why these lobbyist have that great influence over them. As for the students, politicans don’t get any benefits to made on the side of the vulnerable, of the victims. But don’t forget that these students are the futur of the nation. So believe it or not, there will be some change no matter the fact that you are willing or not.

Summary :

The 8th november of 2016 Trump has been elected as President of the most powerful country in the world. But in this article which was published more than a year after the election in the NYT it says that the election has been faked. I will briefly sum up the main points of the text and to see if social media is a threat to democraty or conversely it allows to reinforce democrary ?

In this article, the journalist puts forward that a poll has been conducted after the 2016 election. It consists of people rating the exactness of allegations saying that Hilary Clinton, when she was secretary of state agreed to sell weapons to the Islamic State and that Trump had been endorsed by Pope Francis in order to establish their vulnerabilty to online fake news. Believing these fake news is a major cause of why Obama electors is less likely to vote for Clinton in 2016. However this fact hasn’t been clearly proved but it’s very likeky.

But a lot of people don’t believe that Russia’s industrial-scale trolling campaign could have made any difference. National Review’s Rich Lowry said that « Russian contribution on social media was piddling ». Moreover Adrian Chen who reported on the Internet Research Agency for the NYT have minimize it’s impact. He describes this agency as essentially a social media marketing campaign with 90 people, a few million dollars behind it, run by people who don’t know how to speak english properly and not a full understanding of who they’re targeting

Neverthless, Denis Korotkov, a Russian journalist who has reported on Yevgeny Prigozhin, the oligarch behind the troll factory, denounce the skepticism of people thinking that misinformation couldn’t have changed the election issue. Moreover the 2 reports of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russia’s social media disinformation campaign show that the campaign was more effective that we thinked.

Indeed, russian propaganda is powerful it’s reaching at least 20 million users on Instagram or 126 million people on Facebook associated with the Internet Research agency. Beside, conversely of what we think the organic Fb posts reveal that in each community the IRA targeted, they had a deep knowledge of American culture, media. Nonetheless, we can’t determine exactly the level of infuence but it’s obvious that it affects people behaviour. The Islamic State use Twitter to recruit alienated Westerners or the Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza in 2012 which were slowing down when there was a lot of online support for Hamas in order to keep a good reputation on social media.

So it’s in this fake news climate that drived Chamberlain to establish an invitation-only Facebook group called Pantsuit Nation which is a safe space for Hilary Clinton supporters. The goal is to remove the risk of attacks as much as possible because it makes Clinton supporters reluctant to go public online. These attacks consist of the following process : the anti-Clinton botnets invade the pro-Clinton hashtags and fill them with virulent political attacks.

It’s terrifying how Russian trolling have such a huge impact on American election

Commentary :

What i would like to comment on now is about social media, the advantages and the drawbacks of it effects toward democracy.

1°In this text the journalist openly criticizes the Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election. Russian have used social media is a propaganda tool that diffuses fake news in facebook, instagram or Twitter such as the fact that Clinton approved to sell weapons to the Islamic State or that Trump had been endorsed by Pope Francis. This is far more dangerous when you know that more than half of the american citizen inform themselves via social media. Thus it can modify an election issue and change definitely one country

-It’s also dangerous because it benefits terrorism to radicalize young people who are naive and thus do the « brain-washing ». It allows them to spread their ideology throughout the world. There is for example on Twitter the diffusion of a content (video, photo or text) with a popular hashtag (even if these have absolutely nothing to see). Thus, one can observe the contents of propaganda on the jihad in Syria with the hashtag # Iphone6, a popular subject on the social network and thus, the most seen. Plus, it's a good way for them to call for donations. They ask their followers to send money to support them. It’s an effective way to earn money and then to go buy weapons

2° Besides the disadvantages, it is also an effective way because it promotes collective action that allows isolated people who have the same ideas to connect each other and mobilize. The yellow vest are an excellent example

The referendum of popular initiative, every citizen can make a law proposal that can be voted on a national referendum but at first it requires at least 700 000 signatures via internet in order to be submitted to the general assembly and thus to be discussed. And it is after that the law is the subject of a national referendum. It enables citizens to be more active in the political life of their country. I think that this is an opportunity to have a greater interaction between political leaders and citizens

-citizens can better inform themselves on social networks

3° In my opinion, we should find a fine a balance, we should set up a system of control of fake news which is already the subject of a law in France but at the same time not restricting the freedom of expression as in China where censorship is very practiced. Words like democracy are censored there.

Conclusion :

In conclusion, this article accuses Russia to have interfered into the 2016 American election with the help of social media and show us that social media need more control. However the debate to control social media is complicated because having more control of social media can reduce the liberty of expression which is the root of democracy.

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