The content that Gen Z consumes on social media every day is influenced by a number of political actors, whether we realize it or not. Political interest groups are working behind the scenes to shape what we see on feeds, influencers are working to shape the opinions of their following, and advertisers try to promote content through targeted advertisements. These actors are becoming better and better at disguising promotions and advertisements as typical content to manipulate users more easily. One important way to combat this epidemic is an improvement in media literacy. Media literacy involves being critical of the content we consume online and being cautious when it comes to believing everything that comes across our feeds. It’s important that when we are presented with information on social media, we fact-check before reposting or spreading it because it may be false.

The 2016 Presidential Election reinforced the need for unbiased news reporting. Along with social media, news outlets have become more susceptible to publishing and promoting fake news to their followers. In 2016, popular news sites spread misinformation about the two candidates, Trump and Clinton, which led to many voters to believe a lot of fake stories. A good way to combat this, and ensure we don’t have a repeat of 2016, would be to seek out unbiased news reporting. Following neutral news outlets will allow us to be more responsible, civically-minded citizens and avoid the spread of fake news. Outlets like NPR, AP News, and Reuters pride themselves on their fact-checking and not breaking a story unless it has sufficient evidence. These are standards of journalism that we should seek out when we’re getting our news.

Evidence has shown that social media feeds are not based only on personalized content and often have underlying motivations that allow advertisers and political organizations to drive the content we see. As consumers of this media, we have to make sure we hold platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X accountable when their internal design is biased. This includes systems for fact-checking content. These systems are designed by platforms to weed out fake information from feeds using computer-generated processes, so they don’t have to go in manually to edit these posts. However, human bias can factor into these fact-checking systems and make them reflect personal opinions that can alter algorithms to be politically skewed. We have to hold the platforms we interact with accountable for their fact-checking automations and ensure they are providing accurate disclaimers for fake news content. Because of the fast-changing pace of technology, social media platforms need to consistently update their fact-checking services to handle new developments in AI and chatbots that are programmed to spread false information. As users of these platforms, we have to demand honesty about fact-checking and other systems that shape our social media and require them to prioritize truthful and unbiased content.

To read more about the application of our research, check out our PowerPoint we created: 

Gen Z: Hear me Out Influencing Our Vote