By looking at all of the willful deception and extremist propaganda that social media enables activists to spread, it is clear that social-media-enabled activism does more harm than good; this is important because, to stop this plague from continuing to pollute social media, social media activists’ messages must be censored. The damage that social-media-enabled activists cause each day cannot be overlooked, even in the context of all the good social media can supposedly do.

 

          One potent example of the negative consequences of social media’s availability to all kinds of activists is how ISIS was able to radicalize social media users with “slick videos, online messages of hate and even an app.” This is only one example of how persuasive extremists have used social media platforms to spread propaganda, and, as the global use of social media increases, the number of impressionable people such terrorists are able to reach will increase. Moreover, social media enables activists to spread blatant falsehoods as fact. This kind of willful deception that social media platforms spread can seriously sway the beliefs and values of the billions who use social media. This “fake news” is utilized by nefarious activists of all factions, and it is a pervasive and alarming problem. In one study, it was “estimated that about 25 percent of Americans visited a fake news website.”