Social media re Manchester indoctrinating dcs

[LadyinCement]

Never mind Katy Hopkins, who reaches a few thousand Daily Mail readers.

My teen dcs are being bombarded on social media with views that "we're all responsible", it's a Tory plot, it's only 22 compared with how many die in the world who no one cares about etc etc. Dd showed me Buzzfeed and it's constant.

Now, children are pretty susceptible and I feel that - just in the same way as terrorists are indoctrinated - some children will be accepting of not just the drivel, but the constant drip, drip of a certain agenda.

Young people do not get their news from the Daily Mail. They look at their phones. And this is what they're being fed.

I don't know why so many of you are giving the OP such a hard time, you don't have to look much further than Mumsnet to find the kind of apologists and conspiracy theorists of which she speaks, so why do you doubt that they are out there on Facebook and Twitter?

no one controls the internet.

Job of parents to teach kids to think and not be sheep. As the OP is trying to do.

or you could help them get lives and spend less time on jabber-sites. And yes, I know how ironic this statement is on MN but I'm an adult and capable of critical thinking.

It's only the equivalent of the DM if you are following people who are on that sort of 'wavelength'. As others have pointed out, it's the echo chamber effect.

My FB has nothing like this but is full of Corbyn and other type of conspiracy theories.... (even though he isn't my cup of tea either!)

Best way to balance that is to be aware of it and join/like pages form lots of different places (e.g. The guardian, CNN etc) to balance it out.

It is a problem OP. On social media there is a distinct generational divide where the majority of young people are inclined to take a contrarian view - blaming the west, raising concerns about unequal coverage of atrocities abroad, sneering at others as being Islamophobic or bigots etc.

It seems to be partly an issue of the kind of stuff they are being fed in schools - the ultimate evil is bigotry, progress = diversity. And partly the natural teenage tendency to want to appear sophisticated.

All those people upset and angry by carnage are simply Daily Mail readers having a kneejerk reaction. Whereas the cool, sophisticate teen knows that these things are the natural result of Bush and Blair, of wars for oil, of colonialism, and any number of other past misdeeds. We deserve it. We just need to prostrate ourselves for our historical crimes . Love everyone and maybe they will stop wanting to kill us.

What can you do about it? Support your child. Make sure they are getting another point of view. And help them to have a healthy sense of, and pride in, their own identity.

Social media is not the equivalent of the Daily Mail, not least because you have no control over what is published in the DM, but you can control what you see on social media. If your children are upset by what they are seeing, tell them to stop following the accounts which post that material.

But you more or less curate your own social media. They have created what they are seeing by who and what they choose to follow.
So I don't really understand what you're complaining about.

I agree op I see it from my extremely militant leftie friends on social social. It's not on, mainly because it's not accurate!

But it's everywhere, ToastDemon. Dh is on a forum that is nothing to do with politics/current events. He says that it is now full of people making extreme liberal points which, in the case of these attacks, mainly involve blaming the West, or "us".

I agree scatterolight. What people (young people, even!) don't appreciate is that our level of freedom (particularly women's freedom) in this country has been hard won and looking at the big historical picture can be easily lost again.

What ToastDemon said - social media platforms use algorithms to feed us more of the type of stuff we have already accessed, and they therefore assume we like e.g. if you look at a lot of celeb stuff, you'll be fed lots of the same tripe. She won't get daily mail type stuff if she hasn't accessed similar previously.
You can ensure your DCs have enough information from other outlets to develop their own informed opinions, and encourage them to debate their views at home .

Young people do not get their news from the Daily Mail.

You make that sound like a bad thing? It would be a lot worse if they were

Obviously. I have repeatedly said this.

My dd knows that one of her teachers is extremely left wing and peddles the "it's all our fault" line ad infinitum. But a lot of the pupils love him as he is very "kid friendly" and come out of the lesson like nodding dogs agreeing that anyone who votes Conservative/Brexit is a racist.

You make that sound like a bad thing? It would be a lot worse if they were

It is in some cases, my niece only reads the Canary