Accountable Essay

Accountable Essay

The Book Accountable written by Dashka Slater, depicts a young high school student at Albany High School in Albany, California 2017 who thought it was fair and funny to create a private Instagram account where he posted racist and “funny” memes about people around the school to make his friends laugh”. A few people found out about the account, then a few more, then everybody in the school knew. This incident really stirred up a lot of emotions and drama between people, eventually causing the creator and his friend to go to court and live with fear. At first it was funny for this student and his friends but at the end, it wasn't so funny. Social media has both exacerbated and exposed racist incidents at Albany High School. The algorithm of social media is to spread information around to keep people engaged in drama which has nothing to do with them. Due to this information social media should be held accountable for what goes around since they have the power to stop hate from going around, but they just increase it more.

Social media has caused more chaos in this incident by having people with big platforms be able to speak out about what they think of gruel situations, which is god but also at the same time during this time it caused people to think of the problem as something they have to yell and fight about when they can look at it approach the problem with calmness.Actress and youtuber Skai Jackson asked her followers to expose and share racist people they know “once these students were exposed, social media users would mete out the punishment”(Slater 429). After people are exposed it just makes problems worse which isn’t a way to actually address a situation. Social media problems do increase and increase since” It was designed to do one thing and one thing only: increase engagement by increasing conflict”(Slater 430). Instead of social media like Instagram taking the posts down, it keeps them up in order for more and more people to see it and increase engagement in a bad way.

These days all people want to see is drama or maybe start drama.There are many ways Instagram can spread drama which is the whole reason it should be held accountable for the increase of the Albany incident. There are many ways instagram could've prevented it such as removing the post or even deleting the whole racist account. It keeps up posts with dark humor and may also be a source where people go to see dark humor and memes about people since “I guess the humor just got darker and darker as I explored more of the internet”(Slater 138). A student said, students' humors are getting worse which increases the way they view these means now. At this point in time students are used to seeing memes, dark humor, racist jokes by how regular it’s becoming to see while scrolling through reels on instagram. “Outrage, shame, envy, hate- all of it earns money for social media companies and provides them with useful information…the more they can target them with ads”(Slater 431). Social media has gotten out of hand which to now they’re making money off the people watching these posts which will just make them keep these posts up and never delete them. That’s the reason Social Media should be held accountable. Since social media exposes people because of the algorithm that is meant to stir up drama about racism or jokes on people it should be held accountable for the incidents at Albany High School for purposely not interfering with people and the internet. I hope that if this problem were to come up at San Rafael High School people would come together peacefully and tell a trusted adult about a situation instead of going around telling other students about the account. As for the creators they should first think before they act because they never know what can happen. Yes, it can be a thing between people but at the end of it it’s not okay in general and it may just cause you and the victims to live in fear. Although not everyone will be learning a lesson with this book and not everyone cares about what others think, people should still reflect on how it doesn’t have to be an instagram account that people. A simple word or phrase can really hurt people and create things so it’s really important to think before you act. Maybe someone is used to hearing certain things from others but it doesn’t make it right for you to also say it.