Molly Roberts: Social media shaped the narrative
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Of all the defining events of the digital age — the 2016 election, the pandemic, the Jan. 6 riots and mass shootings — Saturday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump is the clearest example of how social media has changed our world. Messy.
When news broke that there had been a shooting at a rally, it was time to figure out what had happened. In the old days, that was the job of journalists (and official investigators). On Sunday, it was the job of every individual with an internet connection to log on, swallow the confusing jumble of truths, half-truths and lies, and then spit it out.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed this was a plot by the “deep state” to eliminate the head of draining the swamp. Or an assassination ordered by President Biden himself? No, far-left misinformation mongers claimed it was a “false flag” operation by a targeting team. Less confused observers jumped to a less far-fetched but unconfirmed conclusion: the culprit must have been an ideological opponent of the man they were trying to kill, with the goal of advancing the Democratic Party.
We’ve seen Americans struggle to find facts that aren’t readily available at a time when they live in two different realities, we’ve seen social media sites try and fail to separate fact from fiction, but what’s most interesting about this episode isn’t just the collective effort to figure out what happened. What does this mean? in real time.
Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio was one of the first to send a signal to Republicans. Calling Trump “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance suggested the Biden campaign was to blame for what happened Saturday night. Others, from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to the Kremlin, echoed his argument. Clearly, progressive rhetoric created an atmosphere conducive to attack.
Progressives, meanwhile, were mostly annoyed. Was it impolite to suggest that Trump had encouraged political violence when he had only just become an actor in it? Was it possible to condemn what happened strongly enough without implicitly accepting some responsibility? “Votes, not bullets,” began the potentially viral chant.
In any crisis, these calculations take place. But where they once took place more slowly, behind the scenes, in private consultations, they now take place in public, in cross-platform politics, with every voice heard. other than that We are being watched. We — elected leaders, commentators, and ordinary people of various tribes — are afraid to stray from the consensus of what is appropriate for anyone to say. Remaining silent until more details emerge doesn’t seem like an option, because someone could interpret the silence itself as a statement, and because social media constantly breeds fear of missing out.
By reading, posting, and reposting, we both shape the narrative and are shaped by it. But it remains to be seen whether the same forces that currently distort the conversation also shaped a 20-year-old perpetrator who came of age not just in the Trump era but also in the internet era.
What no one wants to do, and the always-on, always-moving dynamics of social media mean they can’t, is wait.
