The Role Of Social Media

The events in the book Accountable by Dasha Slater occurred 7 years ago in 2017. In a town called Albany, California, an Instagram account created by an Albany High School student. The student was targeting and attacking students through the Instagram account that they had created. Social media exacerbated and exposed racism at Albany High School by publicly posting racist posts, this made it easier for people to access the account and posts. Social Media should bear some responsibility for the cause of the spread since they are making a profit off of users' activity.

Social media exacerbates this situation by allowing more people to find the account due to the algorithm pushing it towards people and their mutuals on social media. A student who was one of the victims of the Instagram account had spoken out on a “Twitter” thread and called out Albany Police for not taking action and not handling the situation as seriously as they should have been. Posts like these made the account spread more to the public than it already was. “Tiana took to Twitter, she posted a 27-tweet thread about her experience in Albany: How the @CityofAlbanyCA, educators, administration, school body, and @Albanypolicedropped the ball and allowed me and my friends to be bullied and excluded”(Slater, 430). Tiana creating a tweet and posting it led to the situation being exposed to the public and media. This tweet brought publicity to people and eventually spread around social media. Spreading it around Social Media caused this situation to exacerbate and quickly added to it and possibly made people feel a certain way about it which caused them to speak up about it. “The mother of a student at Albany High School is speaking out tonight about racially offensive pictures that targeted her daughter and others at school’, Said KTVU anchorman Frank Somerville. “In fact, we can't show you some of the photos because they’re so photographic” (Slater, 149). This demonstrates how the news reporter spoke out on a live, worldwide news channel about the situation that was occurring in Albany High School. As he spoke out about this, it drew people's attention and perhaps made people invested in knowing more about the situation and the photos that were posted, which could have led to more people talking about the situation while exposing and exacerbating it more than it was. These two quotes demonstrate how Social media could exacerbate and expose this situation way more than it was. The first quote is from Tiana, she spoke out about her experience in a tweet on Social media making the situation public to her mutual friends and friends. The second quote comes from a news reporter making it worldwide known on a news channel about the situation. Both of these people made the situation public on Social Media which therefore most likely became more exacerbated and exposed than before.

Social Media should take responsibility for not caring about people violating their guidelines and only caring about the profit they make. They should also take responsibility for pushing the algorithm of the account to other people. People follow rules that society has created for people to follow. Following these rules may have been a reason for how the account spread and made it easy to find and have easy access. “Outrage, shame, envy, hate- all of it earns money for social media companies and provides them with useful information. The more those companies learn about people's allegiances, the more precisely they can target them with ads.”(Slater, 431). This quote is significant because social media keeps track of your data. They keep track of your data and activity because they make a profit off of you. Once they see something that you have an interest in or something you've interacted with multiple times such as a post, Social media can then give you an ad similar to the things that caught your eye such as the thing you showed interest in. So, if a student had recently interacted with the account Charles had made, it was most likely the account was suggested to his mutuals and gave them similar ads related to the account. “The more you interact with an account, the more you’re likely to see it in the future. It's possible to follow an account but never see it, but it's also possible to follow hundreds of accounts and have certain ones appear on your feed every time something new is posted. Those are the algorithm's choices, not yours.”(Slater, 43). This quote is significant because Social media keeps track of things you do on their platforms. Such as if you recently interacted with an account multiple times social media most of the time keeps showing you things that are posted on the account. If you seem interested in the account or similar things then they can profit off of you with ads or put similar things on your feed. But it all mostly depends on the algorithm's choice to show you, not yours, you kind of dont have control over what you see. Therefore, These two quotes demonstrate how social media should take some responsibility for the things to occur on their platform such as spreading the accounts and information. Also, how they use the algorithm to profit off of you by giving you ads on such things that interest you and things you interact with.

Therefore, Social Media had a part in exacerbating and exposing the Racist situation at Albany High School by people publicly posting and speaking out which made it known to others about the situation and made it easier for people to have lots of information and details about the racist Instagram account. Social Media should also bear responsibility for the cause of the spread by making a profit off of users' activity. They make a profit by connecting more people on specific accounts like in this case, which likely led to the accounts being more suggested on other devices and easier for people to find due to the algorithm. 

As I read the Book Accountable, I learned how it affected the victims in many forms either mentally or physically. But most importantly I viewed how this situation was handled by the school. I believe a situation like this should be handled seriously as it can impact others' perspectives on themselves if they are a victim of a situation like this. I believe that if a situation like this in SRHS happened It should be taken more seriously than it was in the book. I say this because people who do such things as creating a racist Instagram account targeting people as Charles did in the book should face the consequences of their actions and the damage they have caused others. Although what Charles did wasn't reversible, the school should have had stronger consequences than just a suspension. The school should have given out a consequence where if someone else were to do this they'd learn a lesson and know not to do it again due to the consequence being more harsh than just a suspension. This is why I believe if a situation like this happened in SRHS I would want it to be taken more seriously than it was in the book and take into consideration how it might impact the victims. A lesson that could be learned so SRHS could do better than Albany High School is to have a strong and clear policy on consequences that will be given if there is any instance of bullying, cyberbullying, or Racism. Also, they should teach and educate students more on respect, diversity, and inclusion toward other Cultures and Races. I think constantly reminding them of the consequences that are given if there is any form of bullying will cause bullying to slowly stop only if the consequences are harsh enough.