High-status social media users have a license to misinform

Plato, like Aristotle, defined rhetoric as the art of persuasion. But unlike Aristotle, Plato had a negative view of it. In his dialogues "Gorgias" and "Phaedrus," he argues that rhetoric is merely a means of convincing people, and does not provide genuine knowledge or truth.

In other words, he was not arguing that rhetoric is ineffective. On the contrary, Plato saw rhetoric as a powerful tool that could be used to manipulate and deceive people. In contrast, he believed that philosophy was supposed to uncover truth and provide genuine knowledge.

Several studies have shown that aggressive or untrue messages tend to reach a wider audience on social media. A fascinating recent study indicates that low-status users are penalised for sharing misinformation. But as users move up the status hierarchy — of which follower counts are a good proxy — sharing low-quality information grows their status even faster. The study goes on to argue that these dynamics produce a feedback loop:

“…in which those who have already achieved some stature further distance themselves from others through quality-ambiguous actions.”

This presents a moral dilemma for those that use social media as a platform — and poses a seductive but real risk to leaders using it.