Opinion
This essay was written by an anonymous writer.
For as long as I remember, social movements have been brought onto social media, mainly to bring awareness to their target issue. It’s never posed a problem for me - it was simply promotion for a good cause. You get to inform people and teach them why they should support your movement. Social media is generally a great way to share anything with a mass of young people. However, with all the recent issues being brought to light on the internet, I’ve started thinking about it.
It bothers me to see so many people reposting whatever they see just because it’s a trend. I suppose you could also say that publicity is publicity, which is a valid point. Of course, not everyone posting is doing it just to hop on a bandwagon. If you have a platform and are part of the movement, I have no problem with it. Any attention you can bring to an issue is great, but there’s also a reason for concern.
With so much content about current issues being created, it’s rare to find people fact-checking things they repost. They could spread false information without realizing it themselves. This isn’t simply something I fear will happen in the future - it has already happened, and plenty of times. For example, there were accounts claiming to plant a tree or donate money for every repost. People reposted on a whim and had no way of checking whether or not these accounts had the means to back up their claims. Some of them were found to be scams after people debunked them. There was even a huge incident around 9 months ago where there was a forged text post claiming that Instagram’s Terms of Service was changing, basically stating that it was now a public entity (see photo below).

It only took a few influential celebrities reposting it to create mass panic. In reality, Instagram has always been a public entity. It’s in the fine print, where no one reads. Even though this has no relation to current social media campaigns, it shows the influence one fake post can have. This entire incident could have been avoided if someone simply fact- checked the information.
My second problem lies with how these campaigns never last longer than a couple of months. The most obvious examples are the climate strikes. Once 2020 hit and things like COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter started gaining attention, many people abandoned posts about climate change in exchange for posts about Black Lives Matter to keep up with the ‘trend’. I am in no way stating that the Black Lives Matter movement is any less important than it is. However, the climate change movement should be just as important as it was a year ago. Simply because time has passed doesn’t mean a problem is any less significant. Unfortunately, we are seeing this start to happen with Black Lives Matter too. People are posting less, and the news is talking less about it as a result. No movement, no matter how big or small, should be swept aside just because it was yesterday’s news.
I beg you - please check, double-check, triple check the facts before you post. Remember that people will believe what you post because they trust you. They trust that your information is real, so take responsibility. Do your research because if you are well informed, that means your audience is as well.
Comments