It has been over a month since TikTok’s congressionally-ordered ban was supposed to go into effect. Through legally dubious mechanisms, the app remains active today.
If ownership is transferred to a non-Chinese company, I believe TikTok should remain active. As young citizens and Princetonians, however, we must consider a separate risk that TikTok — and all social media — poses to our national interest: These sites have warped our collective political discourse in ways that deeply harm the health of our democracy.
Higher education’s purpose, in its highest sense, is to enlighten, to advance the knowledge of mankind, and to prepare young citizens to lead lives of purpose. Princeton’s mission as an institution is grandly and pithily expressed by its informal motto: “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity.” Essential to that obligation is to earnestly and diligently seek out truth about our nation and our world. But our generation’s overreliance on social media as their primary source of news complicates our ability to uphold our University’s mission.
Social media has dramatically shifted the news landscape. Fifty-four percent of Americans now get their news from social media. More than 110 million Americans report regularly getting their news from Facebook and Youtube, 68 million from Instagram, and 60 million from TikTok. In the past four years alone, the share of Americans who regularly get their news from YouTube has grown by 40 percent, Instagram by 81 percent, and TikTok by 456 percent. Our generation is leading this trend: Over three-quarters of Gen Z reports getting their news from social media.
Importantly, consumption of news on social media is not supplementing traditional journalism, but replacing it. Over the same four-year period, the share of Americans who regularly get their news from news websites or apps has fallen 14 percent.
The shift away from professional journalism as a source of news to short-form influencer content presents several serious problems. First, the quality of the reporting is simply worse. News agencies hire a large professional staff who investigate and report the facts, gathering information directly, obtaining documented evidence, and consulting relevant experts. Responsible outlets try to adhere to high journalistic standards of truth, accuracy, and objectivity. News brands’ reputations depend on the quality of their journalism. Even student news teams like The Daily Princetonian go through several rounds of fact checking and editing — and even Opinion pieces must substantiate their claims with sources.
In contrast, many social media sites require few administrative fact checks, and the most popular sites are moving away from them rather than towards them. X is the Wild West now, and citing the recent election, Zuckerberg announced Instagram and Facebook would discontinue almost every administrative fact-checking measure.
In an environment divorced from the journalistic process and from accountability to truth, falsehoods spread virally with damaging real world consequences. This is true even without considering deliberate misinformation campaigns waged by foreign adversaries who intend to sow division, distrust, and disarray within the American public — for example, a recent Russian campaign to spread disinformation about last year’s hurricanes.
This should concern us deeply as members of an intellectual community. The very premise of a university is to place students under the tutelage of people who dedicate their professional lives to understanding a subject and transmitting their knowledge in a responsible manner. There’s nothing undemocratic about that arrangement, any more than reading a book is an act of subservience. We should approach our education in current affairs with equal respect for expertise.
This isn’t to say that traditional media is entirely unbiased. We should all maintain a healthy vigilance when consuming any news, expecting a moderate left tilt from The New York Times and a moderate right tilt from The Wall Street Journal. However, compare this type of bias with the alternative. Most political influencers on social media are editorializing almost by definition, since they seldom conduct original reporting. Their service is to disseminate second-hand stories repackaged with their own commentary, and most are unapologetic partisan activists. A citizen simply can’t be adequately informed when commentators are their only source of information. To do so would be like deciding which car to buy based only on a TV commercial. Social media is not a solution to legacy media bias where it exists, but rather an amplifier of the problem.
Increasingly, advanced algorithms are designed to entertain, to affirm group identity, and to provoke outrage. To maintain attention, they create powerful echo chambers in which users are fed content that either confirms their preexisting opinions or displays extreme, caricatured versions of opposing views. The question must be asked: What does consistent exposure to single-sided commentary do to the mind over time? What does it do to an entire community of like-minded people?
Research shows that it entrenches people in their beliefs, provokes greater fear and distrust of opposing groups, and drives them to more extreme viewpoints. We are a nation deeply divided, but not as much as we appear on our screens. Where disagreement does exist, it’s hypercharged by these ideological feedback loops, bifurcating reality and trapping us in an insidious spiral of division.
As Princeton students, we have a unique degree of access to credible and comprehensive news. Not only can we take courses designed to help us navigate a complex media landscape and distinguish legitimate content from disinformation, the University also provides free access to some of the most reputable news publications, across a spectrum of ideological bents. We ought to take advantage of those resources.
I believe our democratic system is in a moment of acute peril. The conversion of social media into the dominant medium for public discourse is an essential driver of this crisis. We have strayed further from a shared foundation of facts and further from each other.
An informed citizenry, it is said, is the best safeguard against disorder and against tyranny. It is, in fact, the only one in a democratic self-governing society. As recipients of the best collegiate education in America, and more importantly as young citizens, it is incumbent on us to be accurately informed.
Leighton McCamy-Miller is a sophomore from Mill Valley, Calif. He is a prospective History major. He can be reached at lm1879[at]princeton.edu.
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