Can social media help fighting the social inequality?

                In today’s world, social media has become a part of everyone’s life. No matters what is the age of the person and from which profession he/she belongs, social media involves in the life of all people. The people devote most of the time on social media chatting with their friends, updating status, uploading pictures and videos or just scrolling down on social media sites. With the passage of time social media platform has become very huge, and now it provides its user not only with the networking services but also entertainment, updated information and power of expression to the people. The social media has changed everyday lives of the people and it also has ability to fight for social inequality (Ehdeed, Bates and Cox).

            The good thing about social media is that it is the effective source of information. Social media can be used as a tool to make the people aware of social inequality. The people who are using social media are likely to get various kinds of information about what is happening in the world. Moreover, they also get to know about many of the facts. Social media helps the people to build a community that relates to their interests. According to the recent survey conducted in US, results shows that in the United States there are more than 71% of the adults who use Facebook occasionally and about 45% of the people likely to use their Facebook a number of times in a day. The people today likely to spend most of their time on mobile phone while using different kinds of application. With the help of social media people are now more aware of the social factors. In the social media sites there is an option of making the groups that allow the people of same interests get together and have discussion on different issues regarding society, politics and the things that needs to be changed.  People make their separate community where they may able to share their ideas and views with other people. The number of people who are gathering in the community can be from any country and background.  Now the people are being aware of different factors of society and how the social media is changing the overall structure.  Cyberbullying is said to be one of the emerging issues of the time. A number of cyberbullying cases, happens every day and result in suicide by the person who is bulled. Bullying is said to be a trend on social media and people find it very funny and entertaining for themselves. The cyberbullying is said to be one of the cybercrimes of social media. Social media is also used as a platform for the criminal activities (Owusu-Acheaw and Larson). The crimes can be cyberbullying, being very personal on social media, hacking someone’s account and getting someone’s personal information without any authority. The terrorist also use the social media to be connected to the network.  Cyberbullying is also a new trend when people are being judged and bullied on their characteristics may be personal or professional.  Now it can be seen in the social media there are proper rights for the bullies on social media that indicates that no one has the right to talk bad about other person and everyone is equal on social media (Khurana).

            Total number of social media sites are expanding day after day. The social networking is now not just the medium of communication but there a lot more things also involve in the social networking sites. The world now becoming a global village where people know about all of the happening all around the world. Through the social networking sites people have more chances to express their opinion, convey their ideas and thoughts to the world.  In the face of social media everyone has equal opportunity to express themselves and have an opinion. Unlike other media platforms that are not accessible to everyone, at social media people have a sense of equality and they feel free to express what they feel right (Siddiqui and Singh). The people are likely to get all news about the country and the world from social media; Social media becomes very powerful tool when it comes to spreading a new idea. Through the use of social media, the people are now more likely to know about their social circles and their friends. The social media is thus a big source of information, the people who are using social media are likely to get a lot of information related to different stuff. People always share their ideas and information on internet that makes social media a powerful and most frequently used source of information (Brussee and Hekman).

            The information presented on social media is also accessible to everyone that is also a sign of equality. It provides the chance to people to connect with their friends and families. The atmosphere of social media is very global; people from all around the world are likely to know about each other in social media community. At social media, there are a lot of fields for business, many of the people are already doing their own business on the social media sites. There are different social media sites on internet to provide different free services to the users despite of their sex, race, nationality and social status. All of the Social Media websites are very different in nature and the content type of the Social Media sites is also different from one another. One of the most used Social Media sites is the Facebook the user can upload, video, picture and send message to the public or friends by using this site. The Twitter is more like free microblogging service on the internet, it is typically used to send short tweets to the public. Another social media platform available on internet is known as Google + that is used to send emails. LinkedIn is also a Social networking site for the business communities that are working in the professional environment (Owusu-Acheaw and Larson).

        There is no doubt that social media has reduce the biasness in the society and unlike other privileges and services of society social media is equally accessible for anyone, everyone can afford it and use it for their benefit. Rabbit is the social news site and Pinterest also a social site that provide opportunity to upload images in different categories. Pinterest pays more focus on the visual content like pictures. These Social Media sites are said to be most used by the people. The statistics of the people using these Social Media sites is different, depending on the services they provide to the customers. The policies of Social Media sites are also quite different from one another. Social Media is also used by the company for the customer's relationship management, by displaying the product and services that they are likely to provide to the customers on Social Media. Now the businesses also have equal chances to grow in national and international market. The customers can also buy products from different companies directly through the Social Media profile of the company.

        “Social media has the potential to bring to people fair and balanced news coverage with little or no bias of mainstream corporate media or propaganda, thereby becoming the de facto news” (Khan-Ibarra)

            Summing up the discussion about the social media fight for the inequality in the society, it can be said that social media is providing equal chances to the people in a society to grow and get benefit from its services.  The information on the social media is also accessible to everyone that is also a sign of equality. It provides a chance to its users to connect with their friends and family. There is also a trend of the Enterprise social networking through the Social Media that combine the groups of the similar interest together and help them share their thoughts and ideas with other people. The Social Media is the best tool that the company can use to stay in touch with their customers. Therefore, we may say that Social Media has a lot of features that attract the individuals and business to it. It is now become an essential part of everyone’s life and transform the overall business processing, marketing and the lives of the individuals as a whole. There is no doubt that Social Media has made people equal by providing them with equal access to services.

            Social media can help to fight against inequality in our society. Social media provide a platform to NGOs and political powers to raise their voice for the elimination of social inequality and racial discrimination in society. High response rate earned by Social media campaigns at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the evidence of the effective role played by the social media in the fight against inequality. A fine example is a #metoo campaign that was supported by the audience for the elimination of sexual harassment. Statistics show that the majority of young age people remains active at social media platforms for more than 135 minutes per day (BERGSTROM). Users follow social posts and share the post with their groups to spread a good message or a comic post in their circles. NGO and citizens of a society can take advantage of this situation to raise their voice against inequality in the society regarding any field of life to spread awareness in the people about how social inequality is evil and unethical. Sharing such posts can help out in modifying human behavior and may result in the reduction of inequality in society.

References of Social Media Help Fighting the Social Inequality

BERGSTROM, BREONNA. 101 Social Media Statistics You Need To Know To Build Your 2018 Strategy. 2019. <https://coschedule.com/blog/social-media-statistics/>.

Brussee, Rogier and Erik Hekman. "Social media are highly accessible media." (2002).

Ehdeed, Sukaina, Jo Bates and Andrew M. Cox. "Social Media as a Source of Information: An Exploratory Study of Young Libyans’ Perceptions of the Impact of Social Media in Libya during the Period 2011-2015." (2016).

Harris, Kevin and Angus McCabe. "Community Action and Social Media: A Review of the Literature." (2017).

Khan-Ibarra, Sabina. The Case For Social Media and Hashtag Activism. 13 January 2015. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-case-for-social-media_b_6149974.

Khurana. "The Impact of Social Networking Sites on the Youth." Mass Communication & Journalism (2015).

Owusu-Acheaw, M. and Agatha Gifty Larson. "Use of Social Media and its Impact on Academic Performance of Tertiary Institution Students: A Study of Students of Koforidua Polytechnic, Ghana ." Journal of Education and Practice (2015).

Siddiqui, Shabnoor and Tajinder Singh. "Social Media its Impact with Positive and Negative Aspects." International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research 5.2 (2016): 2319–8656.