Yelling at Your Grandma Won’t Stop Her from Consuming Polarized Political Content
Tags: Elections, Politics, Family, Social Media, Fake News

A call for a paradigm shift: from fake news to extreme speech

Photo by Johann Walter Bantz on Unsplash

Without any hesitation, I can say that one of the most important factors of political divisions in our current society is the generational gap. This applies to the U.S., my home country Korea, and others like Italy.

The recent U.S. election has proven the effect of mobilized Gen Z, and how this racially-diverse generation stands at the forefront of progressive issues compared to its older counterparts.

In Korea, the older generation (with the exception of Jeonla province residents) tends to be more conservative, in favor of the rightist party. (Though I have to say, the Moon administration has been losing the support of many male citizens in their 20s lately.)

In Italy, populist governors Silvio Berlusconi and Marlo Monti and their respective elderly and youth support bases have likewise illustrated the generational divide that runs deep in Italian society.

My Story

As a 20-year-old, more liberal-leaning woman, I often find myself objecting against most of what comes out of my Grandma’s mouth. This year, with the Korean legislative election in April, the George Floyd incident in May, and the U.S. election in November, we found ourselves in more heated debates than usual.

To put it simply, I found myself screaming at her more because I disagreed with her… while she became increasingly more annoyed at me. Her rightist political view no longer entertained me, and I began policing her with questions of morality while she saw me as a naïve child who idealizes notions of equality but has no realistic idea of economy.

I noticed that she only watches news from a conservative TV channel Chosun TV and discusses politics with her similar rightist friends on Korea’s most popular instant messaging app Kakaotalk, reading conspiracy theories that spread unfounded accusations against the current administration.

Until last month, I took on the role of a political crusader, ready to crush the Taeguki troops — known as the ultra-rightist, pro-formerly impeached President Park Geun Hye organization — and the affiliated rightist individuals who are “infiltrating” my Grandma’s mind.

But at one point, I got tired. I realized our conversations were never going anymore. She wasn’t listening to me, and neither was I listening to her.

All the effort I put into stopping my Grandma from reading what I deemed as “fake news” wasn’t helping. What I learned after spending more than a half year by my Grandma’s side is that the more I tell her what to do or what not to do, the more I was building a wall between the two of us. It seems counterintuitive, but it really isn’t.

Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash

Have you ever noticed that when you reprimand little children for their mistakes, they react with an outburst of tears instead of submitting to your anger? Kids, when knowing that they made a mistake, look for adults’ comfort and guidance. But when adults react with anger, the kids internalize a sense of injustice. What they want is a simple hug or a word of assurance: “It’s okay.” They feel a lack of understanding from those who only respond with a demand for action without empathy.

In other words, it is in human nature to feel repelled against criticisms. Often times, when we get criticized by others, we feel more defensive for ourselves. That’s why leadership coaches come up with tips like “compliment first then provide your criticisms!” The human ego is fragile, and it is difficult for people to not take criticisms personally and try to change their habits and actions accordingly.

So why do we hold the older generation to a higher standard?

Consuming fake news is not a habit that can be abandoned with another person’s call. What really is fake news anyway?

Their Stories

So for the first time, I decided to listen to my Grandma. The first thing I realized is that she will always have her phone and Kakaotalk by her side. She said:

“[Kakaotalk is like] a friend that I need when I am lonely and bored. It allows me to talk to my friends in my life. Kakaotalk is my friend.”

Like the rest of us, social media has a significant role in the older generation’s lives. The truth is as long as my Grandma has Kakaotalk, I will not be able to divorce her from the political content that she consumes. But I also realized that neither should I try to take that away from her.

Through one of the conversations with my Grandma’s friend Mrs. Jeon (pseudonym) who also shares a similar political sentiment with my Grandma, I learned that when people feel unacknowledged about their views, they feel more inclined to hide in their own caves.

Mrs. Jeon shared her experience:

“I can’t watch the videos on Kakaotalk at home. If I do, my daughter will not like it and scold me for it. I can only watch it in my room. But even then, my grandson sometimes comes and questions me on why I support Park Geun Hye and tries to teach me about politics.”

So I asked:

“So do you ever listen to them? Do their views affect you at all?”

She replied:

“During elections, my daughter always tells me who to vote, and I pretend that I agree with her until I cast my ballot. Choosing who to vote is ultimately my right. At home, all I see on the TV is the leftist news supporting the Moon administration. At least the Kakaotalk messages give me something I can agree with.”

Mrs. Jeon confessed that when she felt ostracized by her family because of her political stance, she became more reliant on the polarized content being circulated on social media. Due to her familial opposition, Kakaotalk news was the only agreeable content that she can privately read and listen to.

In other words, the attempt of Mrs. Jeon’s family to “fix” her political stance has generated an opposite response. Mrs. Jeon felt more entitled to her own opinions, even when she could only internalize but not vocally speak for them.

Mrs. Jeon’s story is not exceptional. A lot of us are locking ourselves up in two separate echo chambers, reinforcing our own views and losing our ability to hear any voices of dissent. Social media algorithms make this worse, and we like to throw the fake news stickers on information that we may disapprove.

So What is Fake News?

Let me just start by saying that fake news is an overly misused term. Pause for three seconds, and try to come up with a good definition of the term.

The point is: it’s a term that gets thrown around here and there, but nobody knows the actual meaning of the word. It’s like the word terrorism that the UN cannot come up with a good definition for but is taken advantage of by politicians who use the term to tap into people’s jingoism.

The word “fake” necessarily implies that the information is not true. Fake news does exist for sure. There are people who intentionally create fabricated stories for clickbait, especially during election cycles to not only profit out of the lured readers but also defame political opponents. But if this term is used to describe all kinds of information that we may disagree with, the significance of fake news gets lost in the meaning.

Recent studies have shown that the extent to which we are exposed and affected by fake news has been overstated. It may not be fake news that we are worried about but rather extreme speech that polarizes our political opinions.

Lipika Kamra and Philippa Williams, in their article, introduced a new concept “extreme speech,” which is defined as the following:

“we define online extreme speech as digital acts that seek to polarise opinion, and which may be articulated along the political spectrum.”

Extreme Speech Pandemic

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Kamra and Williams mention the digital culture of extreme speech in India, in which Whatsapp’s private groups become the main platform to spread emotionally-provoking political content that consequently generates “ethno-nationalist identities.”

The culture of extreme speech is not restricted to India. The 2020 U.S. election reaffirmed the political polarization in the U.S. and how social media provided a platform for people to mobilize partisanship. Especially given the context of the pandemic, social media’s influence had only amplified.

Lastly, as I mentioned above, Korea also has an extreme speech culture, where social media platforms like Kakaotalk becomes the battleground for exaggerated and biased political rhetoric for or against the current government.

Extreme speech is a global phenomenon across democratic countries. Traditional media no longer enjoys the luxury it once did, and new media platforms like instant messaging applications and Facebook are replacing the role of traditional media.

This has several implications. One, the standards for writing balanced news content, which is important in journalism, are not considered in social media content. In other words, social media content has a lot more freedom in deploying one-sided, if not distorted, rhetoric that reinforces political cleavages.

But most importantly, citizens are switching their role from news consumers to agents spreading (and often times writing) the information themselves. When we claim our agency, it also means the responsibility to disseminate correct information falls on our shoulders.

But how do we make sure that what we know is correct?

When we are stuck in our own echo chamber, we lose a sense of reality — just like Plato’s cavemen who cannot see beyond the limits of the cave. The paradox is this: What we think we know to be true may not be true. What we think we know to be false but hold as truth by others may be true for them.

Fake News to Extreme Speech

What’s happening to us is that we are all turning into blind men touching different parts of the elephant. One group is calling an elephant a wall after touching its back while another concludes that it’s a rope after touching the tail. Everybody is losing their sense of what the truth is. A simple parable like “The Elephant and the Blind Men” that we learned in elementary school taught us that humans like to use their subjective experience to claim absolute truth and turn down others’ subjective experiences which may be true for them. This is what is happening to us right now.

When we label information that we disagree with as “fake,” then we are claiming absolute truth on our views but denying the right of the others to see their own views as equally true. Such a reaction to political dispute, as we discussed earlier, rather generates a reverse effect by riveting the opinions that were intended to be dispelled.

But if we use the term extreme speech, we are recognizing that a lot of content that we consume may be polarized. By doing so, it gives us space to consider the opinions of others and subsequently piece together puzzles of contrasting realities. Consequently, we may become more immune to actual fake news that is created with malicious intent to mislead.

So What Now?

Aesop’s fable story “The North Wind and the Sun” tells the story of the Wind and the Sun contesting over their strength. They bet over who will succeed in stripping a traveler’s clothes. The Wind blows a strong wind at the traveler to forcefully take his clothes off. Yet the traveler, protecting himself against the wind, only holds onto his clothes tighter. The Sun, on the other hand, uses the warmth to make the traveler feel the heat. Feeling hot, the traveler takes off his clothes on his own. In conclusion, the Sun won the contest.

This story demonstrates a stark contrast between utilizing coercion and employing mild persuasion. Extreme speech is an example of the former. But coercion cannot be stopped with another coercion. It will only repeat its cycle.

Likewise, yelling at anyone consuming extreme speech (or “fake news”) is ironic because you are doing exactly what the extreme speech is doing — screaming lopsided information that blinds you from seeing the other side. When you don’t have the patience to listen to others who disagree with you, they won’t have time to listen to you either.

Just as much as you think the older generation does not understand you as much as your peers understand you, your grandparents feel the same. They network with those who can sympathize with them. Your lack of willingness to validate their opinions only leads to them to remain in their echo chambers.

So the lesson I learned the hard way was to not ostracize anyone— whether it’s your grandma or a colleague who supports another political party. They are entitled to their political opinions in the same way you are entitled to yours. In fact, we are, in a lot of ways, equally blinded by social media algorithms and our subjective knowledge and limited experience.

We are at a digital civil war in many democratic countries. There is little understanding of the other, and all we want to do is to grind our teeth against anyone who dissents. As corny as this sounds, empathy can be the only antidote. All goes to say that if we continue this unhealthy consumption of biased media content, it will become increasingly more difficult to discern what actually is going on and easier for politicians to take advantage of the extreme rhetoric.

Little changes can happen starting from your living room: Stop yelling at your Grandma.