Social Media Tribalism

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA TRIBALISM
SOCIAL MEDIA TRIBALISM
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The aim of the paper is to analyze the issue of tribalism in social media. This paper will
be analyzing the issue from the perspective of the consultant of the social media forum, “The
Public square”. It has been observed in the recent years that the issue of social media has become
more engaging for people.
A huge tribalism or rather a number of group based identities have arose due to the rise
in social media and it must be kept in mind that social media is mainly a platform for sharing
both information as well as knowledge among a number of people. It is found out that people
change their social and political stands easily due to the overarching influence of the social
media in their lives. In social media like the Facebook and Twitter, like-minded people gather to
support and reaffirm their beliefs and engage in some kind of argument that is not accepted by
others in the same way (Brady et al., 2017). Hence it has been argued that the use of social media
has taken people from the path of awareness to evangelism. This is the spread of hatred and
support for one particular cause in social media. The purpose of the any social media is the
sharing of the ideas, discovery which might shape the opinion of people to great extent. As a
consultant of the social media platform, this paper will be analyzing the issue of strategies to be
adopted to regulate this behavior and it will also be looking into the dilemma of the government
intervention for controlling free speech of the social media platform.
As per argument passed by Alexander, it can be said that support of one opinion might go
into the hatred for others, Social media has emerged as the new platform that supports such
behavior where one group of people do not hesitate to insult or rather spread hatred since it is
accepted to be a correct gesture in the social media (Slate Star Codex, 2019). The idea of free
speech as explained by John Stuart Mill argues that free speech allows people to arrive at clear
conclusion, and it is necessary to arrive at the truth of the world (Reeves, 2015). This brings us

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another debate on the right and freedom of free speech. What Mill wanted to argue is based on
the belief that freedom of speech will guide people to arrive and reach at the core truth which is
necessary for all the people (Reeves, 2015). However, what is interesting here to note is that this
debate is not about the freedom of free speech, instead, it is about all the different ethical aspects
of the intervention the government or the management. Hence, the idea here is to look into all the
possible strategies to be adopted in the case of restricting freedom of speech at social media
platforms like the Open Public Square. The main expectation from the use of social media is to
develop an online platform for sharing knowledge and positive outcome. According to
Alexander, people tend to identify themselves with one of the groups on the basis of certain
identity. One of the recent trends which has been explained by Alexander is the problem of out
grouping people. People who are mostly upon the social media find it psychologically
meaningful to attach themselves with one or the other identities. This idea of groupism is
harmful for the people who cannot be attached with any of the identities because this mostly
creates a sense of false compassion for the people on the social platform. This has been possible
as the sense of feeling is not attached with it. It is mentioned that people in these outgroups can
exactly look like one who is not, however, the differences in between all the different groups lie
in the way issues are discussed. Hence, it can be argued from the above discussion that social
media has emerged as one of the recent communicative channels which encourage the formation
of groups. It has not at all been developed for integrating all such kinds of groupism or tribalism
and generate hatred among huge number of people (Silva et al., 2015).
The organization will also be expected to monitor any growth of virtual abuse regarding
any individual issue. It is also to be ensured that digital topology is regulated through the proper
mechanism. This remains as platform for sharing information. Hence, it is important to maintain