Fredi Magazine Special Digital Edition 2017 | Page 13

It’s not hard to imagine why some
theorists claim that social media and its
selective filters had an outsized impact on
the 2016 US elections. Many suggested
the rise of fake news and disinformation
on the internet is a direct result of the
narrowing of our social media spheres.
Disingenuous sites, posing as real news
organizations, write fictitious stories with
headlines designed to bait a targeted
group into sharing. Data suggests a lot of
people will share an article based on the
headline alone. Through sensational and
politically charged headlines, false news
stories spread like wildfire – remember
that Facebook’s filters mean the more
your friends share something, the more
likely you are to see it on your feed.
The latest evolution of social media use
is fascinating. Some organizations –
media companies, businesses, charities –
are benching their websites and starting
to create their entire online presence
on social media platforms. The thought
is this: if people are spending most of
their time on Facebook and Instagram
anyway, why direct all your effort to a
website that few will use? Why expend
valuable resources on a formality like
a website when the most relevant
interactions happen on social media?
News organizations like NowThis have
done away with the traditional website,
opting to become a “social publisher,”
meaning they 100% publish their con-
tent on social media platforms.
They’re betting on a simple trend to
continue: increasingly, people have little
desire to go anywhere online but their
social networks. As the time people
spend on smartphones rises, so does the
portion of that time devoted to social
media. The latest figures say Facebook
eats up about 19% of the average time
spent using a smartphone. Other social
media and messaging apps combine for
an additional 12%. That, collectively,
is an incredible amount of time. These
organizations have decided: instead of
waiting for people to come, they’re going
to go where people are.
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