‘Social media has made the world a more dangerous place.’ Discuss.

The rise of social media has indubitably impacted the world in a countless number of
positive ways. However, I believe that social media has overall made the world a more
dangerous place. Social media is a powerful tool that has lent itself to dangerous rising
forces such as fake news, doxxing and even extremism. This leads me to believe that social
media has caused the world to become even more complex and perilous than before.

Some may argue that social media has not made the world a more dangerous place, but
rather a safer place for all. This is because social media connects us all and allows us to
spread the truth on injustices that would otherwise have been hidden. A current example
would be the Black Lives Matter movement. Using platforms such as Twitter and Instagram,
people were able to shed light on issues of police brutality and take a vocal stand against
the discriminatory crimes of the police, thus bringing justice and safety to the discriminated
minority. This has caused the world to, arguably, become a ‘safer place’. However, this
argument has another side to it as well.

The proliferation of “fake news” via social media has led to a more dangerous world in
which harmful lies spread online then seeps into real life. The nature of social media allows
information to spread like wildfire, regardless of whether it is true or not. This has created
an “infodemic”, in which misinformation and disinformation of all sorts are being spread
widely and rapidly across the world, some of which are downright dangerous to those who
choose to believe in them. Moreover, the social media companies are often unable to
regulate the propagation of “fake news” due to the complexity and sheer scale of the issue.
This issue has become particularly relevant in current times, in which the COVID-19 situation
spurred a massive influx of misinformation. This ranged from toxic “miracle cures”, to
conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus, to simple misunderstandings that gained
traction and became harmful misconceptions. One such misunderstanding was that the
coronavirus is “just like the flu”, which influenced a large proportion of the world to let their
guard down and not take the necessary precautions, almost certainly contributing to the
escalation of the crisis until its current state today. It is clear that

Secondly, social media has led to the rise in the danger of doxxing. With such a large
proportion of the world on social media, doxxing has become an increasingly potent threat
to individual privacy and security. When people post about themselves on social media, they
leave traces of their lives online. This gives an opportunity to those with wrongful intentions
to piece together personal information and publish it online for the world to see, adding a
new dimension of danger to the lives of everyone on social media. One powerful example
would be the 2014 case of Brianna Wu, a games developer who retweeted a tweet mocking
the Gamergate movement. Offended supporters of the movement then proceeded to dig up
and post sensitive private information about her, including her home address. After
receiving messages from strangers threatening to go to her house and assault her, she was
forced to flee for her own safety. This shows how the advent of social media usage has led
to the diminishing of privacy, and the rise of doxxing as a method of intimidation, blackmail
and harassment. Social media enables the weaponization of personal data, something that
was not nearly as feasible before. Therefore, social media has indeed made the world a
more dangerous place.
Lastly, social media has been used extensively by terrorists as a tool, and has had a role to
play in the luring of individuals into violent extremism. Social media allows extremist groups
to recruit, radicalise and organise vulnerable people all over the world even more easily
than before. Due to the informal and unregulated nature of social networking platforms,
extremists can carry out their activities hidden and unreported. More significantly, terrorist
groups can use the immense power and reach of social media to spread fear as well as
propaganda. One such group is ISIS, which was found to have utilized more than one
hundred sites to spread its agenda. In 2014, ISIS used social media to post and spread its
videos of brutal beheadings of captured Westerners, showing how social media was utilised
by them to manipulate the public, spread fear and cause chaos. Therefore, social media is
certainly a powerful, but dangerous tool in the wrong hands.

Overall, social media has connected the world, but has also exposed the world to a new
dimension of danger in the cyberspace and in reality, including misinformation, doxxing,
radicalisation and fearmongering. Hence, social media has overall made the world a more
dangerous place.