Why using Facebook and YouTube should require a media literacy test
Just like driving requires an exam, social media users should be required to take a 15-minute media literacy course, followed by a quiz, before using their platform of choice.
We don’t let people begin operating motor vehicles until they’ve taken driver’s education and then a test for a very good reason: Vehicles are dangerous to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Social networks and the misleading and harmful content they circulate are dangerous for society too, so some amount of media literacy education—and a test—should be a condition of using them.
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter would surely object to such an idea, calling it onerous and extreme. But they willfully misunderstand the enormity of the threat that misinformation poses to democratic societies.
The Capitol riot gave us a glimpse of the kind of America misinformation helped create—and illustrates why it is so dangerous. On January 6, the nation witnessed an unprecedented attack on our seat of government that resulted in seven deaths and lawmakers fearing for the lives. The rioters who caused this mayhem planned their march on the Capitol on social networks, including in Facebook Groups, and were stirred to violent action by months of disinformation and conspiracy theories about the presidential election, which they believed had been “stolen” from Donald Trump.
While the big social networks have made significant investments in countering misinformation, removing all of it or even most of it may be impossible. That’s why it’s time to shift the focus from efforts to curb misinformation and its spread to giving people tools to recognize and reject it.
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Πηγή: fastcompany.com
