Staff Editorial – Balloon sighting paranoia furthers a fear of differences
Speculations about a mysterious balloon have taken U.S. media outlets by storm.
From January 28 to February 4, 2023, the sudden appearance of a high-altitude balloon in the U.S. airspace created much paranoia throughout the country. The first reported sighting was when the balloon was 6o,000 feet over Billings, Montana, on Februrary 1. The U.S. Department of Defense announced the next day that they were aware of the balloon and had been tracking it for multiple days. There has been no confirmation of the actual purpose of the balloon, but after it was suspected of being a “Chinese spy balloon,” it was shot down by a U.S. Air Force fighter jet. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement to CNN that it was simply a weather balloon, and that the U.S. is being irresponsible in its response.
Many conspiracy theories about the real purpose of the balloon have been floating around the Internet – some based off of evidence and prior knowledge, and some simply fabricated from the imagination of social media users.
When it comes to China, American politicians and media are in a constant state of paranoia. With news outlets and social media platforms, this type of news – conspiracies and all – spreads like wildfire.
With news becoming more easily accessible through social media and other outlets, it is now too normal for us to take the first headline we see and assume we have all of the information. We as a country are prone to trusting everything that we read on the internet, without fact-checking or reading the opposite side of the story. Many news sites nowadays are overrun with bias, even if they appear or claim to be non-partisan.
This trusting mindset often leads us to put too much focus on issues that may not deserve attention. In the case of the balloon, warnings and predictions of World War III or a new Cold War swarmed TikTok within days of the first sighting. Within that time frame, there had only been videos of the balloon and a statement issued by the Pentagon Press Secretary, stating that the U.S. government is actively tracking the balloon and is aware of it. For all we know, it could have been a weather balloon as China claimed. However, instead of waiting for the facts, many Americans jumped to conclusions, arguing that it could’ve had radar scanners to study our missile arrangements.
If this is the only information that we see, it causes us to have dangerously misleading ideas about both our government and the Chinese government.
We use speculation to target American citizens who are a part of specific minorities. The second that there is a sense of fear, news outlets explode with misinformation and bias. News headlines fuel our opinions on ethnicity, leading to biased racism and discrimination within our country. Chinese-Americans have been common victims of unfounded accusations for years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. and devastated the country.
We took the same prejudiced action 82 years ago when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941. A wave of fear spread across the country, we turned on our fellow citizens just because they had Japanese ancestors, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all Japanese-Americans to leave their homes to live in internment camps for the duration of the war. Over 127,000 innocent citizens of the United States lived in these camps for nearly three years, due to American paranoia and prejudice.
It is imperative that we keep our history in mind as we move forward as a country, because we are bound to make the same mistakes again if we ignore our past. We have been taught through events like COVID-19 and Pearl Harbor that jumping to conclusions can be dangerous, and taking our anger, fear and suspicion out on citizens is almost always immoral and wrong. If we just remember to get all of the facts before making accusations and spreading information, we can avoid so much discrimination and pain.
Speculations about a mysterious balloon have taken U.S. media outlets by storm.
From January 28 to February 4, 2023, the sudden appearance of a high-altitude balloon in the U.S. airspace created much paranoia throughout the country. The first reported sighting was when the balloon was 6o,000 feet over Billings, Montana, on Februrary 1. The U.S. Department of Defense announced the next day that they were aware of the balloon and had been tracking it for multiple days. There has been no confirmation of the actual purpose of the balloon, but after it was suspected of being a “Chinese spy balloon,” it was shot down by a U.S. Air Force fighter jet. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement to CNN that it was simply a weather balloon, and that the U.S. is being irresponsible in its response.
Many conspiracy theories about the real purpose of the balloon have been floating around the Internet – some based off of evidence and prior knowledge, and some simply fabricated from the imagination of social media users.
When it comes to China, American politicians and media are in a constant state of paranoia. With news outlets and social media platforms, this type of news – conspiracies and all – spreads like wildfire.
With news becoming more easily accessible through social media and other outlets, it is now too normal for us to take the first headline we see and assume we have all of the information. We as a country are prone to trusting everything that we read on the internet, without fact-checking or reading the opposite side of the story. Many news sites nowadays are overrun with bias, even if they appear or claim to be non-partisan.
This trusting mindset often leads us to put too much focus on issues that may not deserve attention. In the case of the balloon, warnings and predictions of World War III or a new Cold War swarmed TikTok within days of the first sighting. Within that time frame, there had only been videos of the balloon and a statement issued by the Pentagon Press Secretary, stating that the U.S. government is actively tracking the balloon and is aware of it. For all we know, it could have been a weather balloon as China claimed. However, instead of waiting for the facts, many Americans jumped to conclusions, arguing that it could’ve had radar scanners to study our missile arrangements.
If this is the only information that we see, it causes us to have dangerously misleading ideas about both our government and the Chinese government.
We use speculation to target American citizens who are a part of specific minorities. The second that there is a sense of fear, news outlets explode with misinformation and bias. News headlines fuel our opinions on ethnicity, leading to biased racism and discrimination within our country. Chinese-Americans have been common victims of unfounded accusations for years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. and devastated the country.
We took the same prejudiced action 82 years ago when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941. A wave of fear spread across the country, we turned on our fellow citizens just because they had Japanese ancestors, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all Japanese-Americans to leave their homes to live in internment camps for the duration of the war. Over 127,000 innocent citizens of the United States lived in these camps for nearly three years, due to American paranoia and prejudice.
It is imperative that we keep our history in mind as we move forward as a country, because we are bound to make the same mistakes again if we ignore our past. We have been taught through events like COVID-19 and Pearl Harbor that jumping to conclusions can be dangerous, and taking our anger, fear and suspicion out on citizens is almost always immoral and wrong. If we just remember to get all of the facts before making accusations and spreading information, we can avoid so much discrimination and pain.