UTEP students believe social media has caused political tension

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- ABC-7 spoke with multiple students about the role that social media has played in escalating political violence over the last few years.

Since January 6th, 2021, there have been over 300 politically motivated attacks, capped by the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday afternoon.

Student at UTEP say that social media has played a big role in dividing the country on certain topics.

"It's almost like they're framing certain things so that we have to either align ourselves with one side or the other," said Isai Mirmontes. "Rather than be able to have open discourse on stuff that we disagree on."

"I think social media has had a very negative impact on political warfare," said Ramiro Moctezuma.

One student said that social media can influence others on what to do, including violent acts. He brought up potential violence following the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year.

""That's what social media does," said Gabriel Castanadi. "Like he might influence people to kill more people."

The students said that your algorithm on social media applications will show you what you want to see, and that can be good but also dangerous.

"In a way, our lives are in their hands since we do spend a lot of time using these social media platforms," said Mirmontes. "And it's really sad to see what happened."