The Role of Social Media

In Accountable by Dashka Slater, published in 2017, we read how in the city of Albany an instagram account was created by Charles targeting his classmates making jokes. He would publish pictures without consent and edit them or captioned them to make a racist joke. This specifically took place in Albany High School, targeting African American teenage girls. Social Media exposed and exacerbated he racist post because it was easy to follow and share it leading to protests. Instagram definitely played a huge role in exposing the racism at Albany and should be held responsible for the incident.

Social Media helped expose the racism at Albany high school by the post being made about the protests and the people bringing attention to Charles and the rest of the followers of this racist account. When the account had been exposed everyone was mad about this incident. Many thought how could this have gone on for so long and who would be cruel enough to make such racist jokes. Soon protests began where both students and parents were upset with this issue as it had caused much damage to many of the targeted girls. Soon this issue made it back on to social media but this time it was to argue against it. Protests had been posted causing many to be both interested and mad. For example, “As the school day wound down, students from nearby high school who had heard about the protest on social media began to show up, gathering on the nearby corners”(229). This clearly shows how social media did bring more attention to the issue at Albany High school. Of course if they posted these protests they would get attention and social media would spread this issue around quickly. Years later this incident was brought back on social media when disney channel star, Ski Jackson made a tweet asking for people to expose any racist people that they know freshly after the Gorge Floyed incident that had occurred mid COVID-19 lockdown. One of the girls affected took this chance to tweet and expose the boys and later another activist, “...posted screenshots of Tiana’s post on her own Instagram account, along with the names of the colleges several of the account followers attended”(430). Indeed social media was a big factor when it came to exposing the racist incident at Albany, the fact that it came back to social media years later says a lot. Social Media exposed the racist incident at Albany high school by publicizing the protest and bringing a lot of attention to the followers of the account.

Social media is definitely a strong form of communication within teens and Instagram is for sure a platform where people spread messages positive, and negative and should be held accountable for anything that goes wrong. Social Media is a place where everyone is far too comfortable, especially because they are hiding behind a screen. On top of this there is also a specific age group that knows how to really use social media. For example, “Because most adults are completely clueless of this world, our online activity goes unregulated and we remain unaccountable”(138). This illustrates how teens feel they could just turn to social media to say anything because they feel it will have no consequences. Social Media has made itself to be a place where spreading hate is just normal and social media itself should be responsible for that. Like mentioned before, Ski Jackson made a tweet, which she later brought onto instagram calling out other racist people who had previously made racist posts on instagram. I read, “She issued the same invitation on instagram, singling out middle school, high school, and college students who had made racist social media posts in response to Floys murder”(429). This highlights how there are many who use social media in a negative way, but also people who try to stop it, but it still ends up being a toxic environment. Clearly there are many posts being posted on social media and these posts should be checked. This quote connects to the fact that social media should be held accountable because it states how there are many people who are using their platform to make racist comments and instagram has allowed them that freedom. Overall, social media should be held responsible because it is providing platforms for people to make racist posts allowing them to stay up for a long amount of time. Even if some posts might get taken down they were still seen at some point.

Indeed social media did influence how out of control the situation got at Albany High School and social media should be held accountable.Throughout the book it is clear that social media was the canvas where the mess was created and continued being exposed. From the account being created, to protests being posted, to the account followers being exposed, social media was the heart of it. Social media platforms should bear some responsibilities because it is in fact a space to spread hate speech. Seeing how everything went down in the city of Albany I hope that if SRHS ever were to have the misfortune of having any incident like this it would be handled much better. I feel like the situation would definitely be handled differently because of how seriously SRHS takes racist incidents when they find out about any. Overall, the lesson taken away from this situation is that hate accounts should not be created, if you think something is funny but there are some people that find it offensive, then it probably isn't as funny as you think and is in fact offensive.