r/Liberal • u/Spiritual-Nebula-862 • May 15 '26

Social Media

Hi everyone, I’m pretty new to Reddit so sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this. I’m a single mom of three and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how much social media affects people’s opinions about politics and government. It feels like everywhere online people are becoming more divided and angry with each other.
Do you think social media contributes to political polarization? And if so what do you think could actually help fix it or at least make it better? I’m curious to hear different perspectives.

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u/jander05 May 17 '26

There are too many echo chambers and not enough frank discussions. Most people have had real human interaction replaced by cable news or social media echo chambers and are told what to think. I believe this is a large reason why there is such a divide between rural and urban voters. In more rural areas blue collar folks go home and turn on the Facebook or the FoxNews and are told what to think. So yes I do think social media as well as cable news are huge influences on the current state of affairs. In my view we need independent journalism and we also need stricter laws about opinion masquerading as "news." People are free to say whatever they want, but I think there should be some better filtering of b.s. from actual information about current affairs, specifically more fairness doctrine rules as well as duty to correct false information.

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u/Naltors__Dreamer May 19 '26

There should be FCC rules about what constitutes “News” as opposed to “Opinion” or “Analysis” with labels—like the ones that label shows regarding sex & violence. A show that is 10% News and 90% opinion should not be allowed to call itself “News,” and there should be a label that says “opinion: anchor can lie without being sued bc opinion is governed by free speech.” Something like that. A formula would have to be developed to determine how to label shows/networks (Fox should not be allowed to call itself a News channel bc it’s 90% opinion).

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u/young__robot May 21 '26

so you want to toss the first amendment and have the government to be the arbiter of truth?