{"id":386844,"date":"2017-12-27T09:46:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T09:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=386844"},"modified":"2017-12-27T09:46:14","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T09:46:14","slug":"obama-warns-irresponsible-social-media-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=386844","title":{"rendered":"Obama warns against ‘irresponsible’ social media use"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former US President Barack Obama has warned against the irresponsible use of social media, in a rare interview since stepping down in January.<\/p>\n

He warned that such actions were distorting people’s understanding of complex issues, and spreading misinformation.<\/p>\n

His successor Donald Trump is a prolific user of Twitter, but Mr Obama did not mention him by name.<\/p>\n

Mr Obama was quizzed by Prince Harry on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.<\/p>\n

Prince Harry, fifth in line to the throne, is one of several prominent figures who are guest-editing the programme\u00a0over the Christmas period.<\/p>\n

The ex-president said those in positions of power should be careful when posting messages, warning that social media is distorting civil discourse.<\/p>\n

He expressed concern about a future where facts are discarded and people only read and listen to things that reinforce their own views.<\/p>\n

“One of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entirely different realities. They can be cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.<\/p>\n

“The question has to do with how do we harness this technology in a way that allows a multiplicity of voices, allows a diversity of views, but doesn’t lead to a Balkanisation of society and allows ways of finding common ground,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has been accused of overusing Twitter, though he maintains it allows him to connect directly with the American people.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

On handing power to Mr Trump, Mr Obama described mixed feelings, given “all the work that was still undone”.<\/p>\n

“Concerns about how the country moves forward but, you know, overall there was serenity there,” he adds.<\/p>\n

As well as editing, Prince Harry is himself interviewed on Today.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t done that many interviews but it was quite fun, especially interviewing president Obama despite the fact he wanted to interview me.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a big learning curve but also these are incredibly important topics we all need to think about and need to be discussed.”<\/p>\n

The prince’s programme focused on issues such as the armed forces, mental health, youth crime and climate change.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former US President Barack Obama has warned against the irresponsible use of social media, in a rare interview since stepping down in January. He warned that such actions were distorting people’s understanding of complex issues, and spreading misinformation. His successor Donald Trump is a prolific user of Twitter, but Mr Obama did not mention him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":386846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/386846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}