Avoiding Social Media Manipulation

In 2025, January 7th fell on a Tuesday. Mark Zuckerberg announced from his social media accounts, that Meta and Facebook were "getting back to their 'roots' and ending the era of Fact-checking."-I say 'roots' in quotation marks because Mark is trying to rewrite history with that statement, as a millennial who was there for the for inception of Facebook with a university login, I know that the 'roots' of Facebook came from him creating a platform to rate girls 'Hot or Not' but I digress.

This was long after Facebook's controversial "emotional contagion" experiment in 2012, which manipulated the news feeds of nearly 700,000 users to study how emotional content influenced their behavior. Back then, few could have predicted how this early instance of social media manipulation would deeply reshape our understanding of truth and manipulation on social media.

Fast forward to 2025, Meta, Facebook's parent company, was disbanding its global fact-checking program. This decision, ostensibly made to promote "free speech," effectively removed one of the last barriers against the spread of misinformation on the platform.

The repercussions of Zuckerberg's announcement were immediate and far-reaching. Within hours, social media feeds were flooded with unchecked claims, conspiracy theories, and deepfake videos indistinguishable from reality. The line between fact and fiction, already blurred, seemed to vanish entirely. The misinformation spanned from Mark Zuckerberg's Black love child, to his gifting of the statue of his wife to apologize for him stepping out on their marriage to private emails released detailing how Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are to exclusively refer to President-Elect Donald Trump as Daddy Sweetmilk.

Now we find ourselves at an impasse, the need for critical thinking and media literacy has never been more urgent. The battle for truth in our hyper-connected world has entered a new phase, with the responsibility of discerning fact from fiction now resting squarely on users' shoulders.

So what can we do to avoid Social Manipulation via Social Media?

First, we have to acknowledge that it's not politically biased to fact check. Facts are objective truths, not opinions or "alternative facts." The decision to end fact-checking seems to stem from a misguided attempt to address perceived bias rather than to uphold factual accuracy.

As we march into this new era of unchecked information, the stakes have never been higher. The spread of misinformation and disinformation has far-reaching consequences, impacting not just individual perceptions but also democratic processes, public health, and social harmony. With social media manipulation costing the global economy an estimated $78 billion annually*, the need for effective countermeasures is clear. However, the solution isn't simple. While technology offers potential tools for detecting and countering manipulation, their effectiveness remains questionable. The responsibility now falls on us, the users, to develop critical thinking skills, diversify our news sources, and be wary of emotional manipulation in content. As we move forward in this fact-less era, our ability to discern truth from fiction will shape not just our realities, but the very fabric of our shared social experience.

Here are quick tips for avoiding social manipulation on social media:

1. Develop critical thinking skills and media literacy.
2. Diversify news sources beyond social media platforms.
3. Be wary of emotional manipulation in content.
4. Verify information before sharing or acting on it.
5. Understand the mechanisms of how social media can influence emotions and behavior, as demonstrated by the 2012 "emotional contagion" experiment.

Remember that the power to shape our digital reality lies in our hands. The end of fact-checking doesn't mean the end of truth—it means the beginning of a new era where we, as users, must become the guardians of facts. By honing our critical thinking skills, diversifying our information sources, and remaining vigilant against manipulation, we can create a more resilient and informed online community.

The future depends on our collective ability to discern truth from fiction. As we face this challenge, let's not see it as a burden, but as an opportunity to reclaim our autonomy online.

Together, we can build a social media environment that fosters genuine connection, meaningful dialogue, and the pursuit of truth.

The era of fact-checking may be over, but the era of informed, critical engagement is just beginning.

Citations:

*Cavazos, R. (2025, January 11). Economic impact of misinformation. CHEQ Cybersecurity Research.