Reflective Essay for Philosophy Course (Essay Sample)

Social Media
In Plato’s allegory of the cave, Plato introduced an example of what a man would face in his journey of seeking the truth. He explained exactly what a man would face and how the society would be a diffecult obstacle in his way. When Plato introduced the allegory of the cave, he illustrated that one would leberate from his whole life ideas and start seeking the true knowledge, ideas. He explained further, from the beginning of the journey, where one begins questioning his ideas and beliefs using his reasoning ability. Plato thought that everyone has the ability to reason regardless his age, race, and sex. With this in mind, a man would form a whole new world of ideas that are different from which he believed at first. Those new ideas give a man a different perspective to deal with the world around him. After seeking the truth, Plato stated that one starts to introduce his new ideas to others and how it is an exhausting process and a way full of danger that may, eventually, sends him to death, as what happened with his friend, Socrates.
In the case of social media, everyone can easily express their opinions and knowledge without having to interact face to face with other. With this way of sharing knowledge, a critical problem emerges, and that problem is reliability; as everyone has the absolute freedom to write whatever he desires without even checking if it is true or not. Another major problem also appears, that not everyone has the credibility to write in a specific subject, leading to a massive amount of data that is not trusted, and the result is misleading information in all subjects. Needless to mention the amount of fake data that is used for political purposes, by political parties, whose only goals are to shake the public opinion and achieve hidden agendas. Another aspect that adds more false information is marketing campaigns, those campaigns flow social media platforms with tons of data every day transforming it from a place where people can share information to a competition between products, and with the age of digital marketing, social media has become another whole place that only perseus people attention to increase sales and profits. However social media gives everyone the right to express their opinions freely without interacting with others, the result is nearly as what socrates faced. A notable amount of anger, hate, and bullying that people with different opinions face everyday, not just on social media, but the hate extends to the real world and may endanger those who have different opinions other than the public believe. In most of the third-world countries, especially Egypt, and for the government, social media is considered a powerful tool that enables them to keep their power, by controlling the public opinion and eliminate any opposing party. They even use people opinions on social media as an evidence at courts to prove that someone is guilty and that he seeks to corrupt the country by writing a random post on a virtual world. Many cases had sent to prison by just sharing their opinion on social media. For someone that seeks the truth, social media is not the right place to search in; as they will end up lost in the massive amount of date that flowed to