New Poll Shows Majority Of LGBTQ+ Community Think Social Media Is Harming Democracy

About two-thirds of all Americans (64%) say social media has a mostly negative effect on our democracy. Of that number more than 80% of conservatives and Republicans believe our democracy is under attack from Social media. But most disturbing of all is that as many as 54% of the liberal mindset of the LGBTQ+ community also believe our democracy is harmed by social media. This is the most negative number in the history of social media since the formation of the internet. The top reasons for this opinion by the poll is misinformation, the hate and harassment they see on social media. They also have concerns about users believing everything they see or read – or not being sure about what to believe. Additionally, they bemoan social media’s role in fomenting partisanship, polarization, and the creation of echo chambers. Interestingly, the younger you are, the more optimistic you become about social media. An industry generating hundreds of billions of dollars is largely the wild west. A huge issue is virtually no government regulation. The only real regulations comes from the Communications Decency Act infamous Section 230 saying "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Essentially this means that the social media platform has no responsibility for the content on the platform. You do. While at first glance that is an embracement for free speech, it really is an embracement that the government has done nothing in the 27 years that this law was passed. In the last century. Before there were any of today’s major social media platforms. In fact, this law was passed when less than 20% of Americans had ever even been on the world wide web. The LGBTQ+ community is literally living in the “wild west” online. This is not a new phenomenon. Up until the 1970’s doctors did advertisements that smoking was good for you. Then the government had comprehensive safety warnings added and advertising policy changes against smoking that saved millions of lives. It happened again in the 1980’s when no car required a seat belt until laws occurred in 1986 to make them mandatory. It happened because studies proved the danger and the federal government, despite car lobbies, took action. In this last year more than 20 attempts have been made in Congress to regulate social media and 100% have not even made it to the floor. The most common explanation as to why is the social media lobby. A final question on what is happening to the LGBTQ+ community in social media is “The Why?”. Just this week Facebook insider and whistleblower Frances Haugen answered that question. Profits. Like tobacco in the 60’s & 70’s and Seatbelts in the 70’s & 80’s it was not about safety but rather about money. Haugen said “If Elon Musk wants twitter to be a public square, he should make its algorithms open source.” Translation, social media sites have every incentive to start the fight on your feed. Especially broad from community against marginalized communities of LGBTQ+, people of color, religious minorities and women. A “like” is not nearly as valuable as a “dislike”. Studies show angry emoji’s get 5 times the preference by algorithms because they are more likely to be clicked and clicks generate advertising profits. Your anger against trans, drag queens, gay marriage, and children in schools are far more likely to be shared. And that makes money. So why today’s poll results surprise us, we really shouldn’t be surprised.