The Role of Media

In the book, Accountable by Dashka Slater, she wrote about the incident in Albany High School, California, of a racist instagram account that occurred in 2017. Talking about how it the idea started, different people's point of views, and the involvement of others. This impacted the High School and the students who were involved with the account and the people who were impacted by it for a long time. The media was the way this incident was spread across platforms and the news. That had an influential overview that caused so much more than what happened because of the lack of moderation that platforms do not have. Without this, it has a greater influence on an easily influenced society.

Social media has had a big influence on society during this time. Having the media and the network as a source for many people. The excessive use of it by humans was the instrument that spread the incident in Albany High School in an aggravated way. With the use of the media the event of the account started to spread, ending up in the news. On a wednesday night, the story of the instagram account ran in the evening news featuring Billes Mother (one the victims). The portion of the news about 3 minutes long, it “partially blurred-out pictures of some of the posts, mentioned the involvement of the police, and involved a clip of the district superintendent” (Slater 149). This usage of the media to spread this news of Albany High School got it to people across the state and country of this horrible situation. Giving this information, it did not notify others but exposed the racist incident that happened at the school and the school’s overall condition. The fast spread of the information allowed a revealing of people and if they were victimized or not. Even years after the event the influence of the media took over and exposed the school to a much larger group of people. In 2020, just 3 years later, George Floyd an African-American man, was murdered by a white policeman. And with the platform, an influencer took it to a state where people would text him telling him the people that have been a bully and expose their social media platform, school, and even job. Taina was one of the victims of the incident in Albany who came across and decided to do this. “She posted a 27-tweet thread about her experience in Albany: How the @cityofalbanyCA, educator, administrators, school, body and @albanypolice… allowed [her] and her friend to be bullied and excluded”(Slater 430). Taina’s way of using the media not only exposed her community and high school but the people she mentioned about. And with a much influenced group of people the hate was big. Social media did not only allow her to expose Charles and his friend but it influenced her showing how the media play a big role in our life. The way people used social media to show the incident of Albany High School had an inconvenience outcome to the school and the students lives.

Seeing the influence social media had when it was used to expose this event, makes it necessary for the platform to have responsibility in any allowed, hate speech spread and misinformation. Before Charles made the private account @yungcavage. He and his friend would make jokes that were related to racist comments among each other. Until Charles made the account posting something very responsible to target someone's race. No one saw this as it was private but two girls who di not follow the account were shocked to see it. When Lolia and Sita went through the private account that Charles had made, through Murphy’s phone. They saw a “photo of Andrea paired with a photo of a gorilla”(Slater 30). The girls seeing this post about someone they know did not only make them feel awful towards that person but felt targeted too. As well as others with the same race, affecting a whole girl friend group once the girls knew of the account. Avoiding this at all cost will project a better influence. Going back to the way people used social media to expose people and their past behavior is also a reason for the media to not allow this unconfirmed information. Once they were exposed, “Social media users would mete out the punishments; doxing them, sending them hate messages, reporting to their jobs or school”(Slater 429). Giving this freedom of saying anything, with no confirmation of the information of it being true it would only lead to bigger problems to the wrong person being targeted.The freedom of the platform without restrictions can seem as a liberty for people. Platforms allowing those situation happen will create chaos in the media world and in many lives that would permanently affect if there is no changes in preventing this in Social media

Seeing the account and how it was widely spread shows the reason for the platform used. To be exposed to so many things, leads to the reason why the media should bear with what their users put into their platforms. As the information can affect many lives in a worldwide app. I hope that San Rafael High School would never have to come to a state where our school would get exposed, but resolve the problem. It truly would not be a pleasure to anyone in the school. This story genuinely shows the consequences of not being wise of what you say, post, take in about anything. Knowing how SRHS is very strict with no hate speech on campus and a big dedication to people's identity. There would be no interfere with this, but, if it were to happen I would hope in the school administers to step in and stopping it and not the students.