The Insanity of Political Instagram

By Charles Hilu

Sunday, July 03, 2022

 

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health triggered an intense, emotional response from the left. When this happens, it tends to result in an onslaught of ostensibly pithy but ultimately specious memes on Instagram (among other forums), meant more to elicit approval from the like-minded than to persuade those who disagree.

 

This past week was no exception.

 

After the Court overturned Roe v. Wade, your social-media feed might have included any number of tendentious PSAs. Posts such as, “Unfriendly Reminder: if you only support abortion in cases of rape or incest, you’re reinforcing the idea that in order for a woman to have a right to her body, someone else has to violate it first” (alternatively, you could just be pro-life in all cases). Or pictures of protest placards that say, “Don’t like abortions? Ignore them like you ignore school shootings” (this analogy would work if conservatives wanted to legalize school shootings). Or another that reads, “You’re pro-life until the baby is poor, hungry, sick, houseless, gay, of color, an immigrant, mentally ill, etc,” (those babies should not be killed, either). At their worst, these posts blatantly mislead. One graphic that circulated is a screenshot of a tweet that claims, “The treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is abortion,” and implies that pro-life laws will ban the treatment for them, resulting in women dying. While ectopic pregnancies can be fatal, laws banning abortion would not stop doctors from treating ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages.

 

This type of rhetoric is nothing new. People have been making bad arguments since time immemorial. Nor is Instagram the only platform hosting toxic political discourse — but its “story” feature makes it a particularly hospitable habitat. Instagram stories allow people to share other people’s posts or their own original photos outside of their main profiles for 24 hours, after which they disappear. Posting too much political material on a personal social-media account can make a profile boring, but if the content disappears a day after it goes up, that problem is no longer present. In the same way, users enjoy a lack of accountability that they might face on, say, Twitter. If a new employer or a prospective social connection were to see misleading and hyperpolitical posts on a profile, it could backfire. Not a problem if the content goes away after a short period of time.

 

Meanwhile, the incentive to share is overwhelming. Progressives post these memes to signal loyalty to social-justice causes, something that’s been happening for years but ratcheted up during 2020’s activism earthquake. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin, Instagram users participated in “Blackout Tuesday,” during which they flooded the platform with black squares. Refusal to participate was a sign of inadequate devotion to racial justice, and some who did not join in faced backlash from their peers. The army of “keyboard warriors” grew.

 

But what do these posts accomplish? As currently constructed, they are too short and ham-fisted to make compelling points. Their aim is not to persuade but vilify. And yet their reach is growing, floating up to the halls of power.

 

Supplementing a speech she gave on the House floor, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) suggested on Twitter that, because Republicans do not support her favorite social-spending and gun-control policies, their crusade against abortion “is not about life and never has been. It’s about seizing power and control” — an argument straight off Instagram, where she has instructed people how to circumvent abortion laws. When politicians use these talking points, they feed into an unfortunate cycle, legitimizing sophistic takes and encouraging others to repeat them.

 

Believe it or not, the Internet does not need to be this toxic. Its platforms have the potential to make the finer points about policy more accessible and invite people to meet others whose experiences they might not otherwise consider. Instead, we get digital yard signs.