Rulers struggling with social media
VENEZUELA’s recently re-elected President Nicolás Maduro has banned X; the British prime minister says he would have to look at social media regulations following its use recently for incitement of racial hatred; and the Pakistani military and its acolytes in the media have liberally used the term ‘digital terrorism’.
Regardless of the context of each of these statements, actions, they all point to the fallout from the crumbling monopoly of traditional media over information flows, as more and more people are turning to social media for their news, views and analyses.
Those around the world with a stake in whatever their own particular established order is, are struggling to deal with the challenges this transition is posing. There are no existing rules of engagement in place, whether by consensus or arbitrarily enforced, because the social media has exploded and gained tens of hundreds of millions of users, outpacing any possible legislation or regulation.
Each country, or those in power to be precise, evolves its response reflecting its own unique circumstances. For example, Maduro won the presidential election, but the US establishment does not like the outcome because a left-leaning politician won. Having lived under a US-orchestrated siege for years, Maduro isn’t blameless. His government’s performance could be much better.
Social media is an instant mirror that shows us each our reality.
For its part, the US has put all means at its disposal, including social media, to change the outcome of the election, and this attempt at forced regime change includes fomenting social unrest and street violence, with wide distribution of video-taped incidents of staged violence, ostensibly by Maduro supporters.
In banning X, Maduro has not acted democratically, but fear drove his decision because those fanning the flames of violence and division were very powerful and well-resourced, apart from being tech-savvy. His response was to turn off the tap.
This is the Chinese model of media management (traditional and social both). Just develop firewalls; ie, place impenetrable blocks in the path of any and all conduits of information so that the monopoly reverts to you. Critics have called one such e-block the Great Wall of China.
On the auspicious occasion of our Independence Day next week, it is being reported, our very own firewall will be activated. Its architecture is already in place and all that is required is the press of a button. What remains to be seen is which part of the hybrid set-up will earn itself the distinction of pressing it.
Given the eagerness of the civilian partners in the current hybrid set-up to shoulder a fair amount of the burden of their uniformed counterparts, I won’t be surprised if someone from the PML-N or even the PPP, with its sterling track record in Balochistan’s current administration particularly, will volunteer to do the deed.
Officials have already blocked X, as its new owner wants to call Twitter, and yet many Pakistanis are using VPNs to still tweet and have their say. Let’s see if the firewall is effective against their VPNs too, or if some information will continue to trickle out.
The Pakistani military believes that there is an ongoing campaign against it on social media that is being orchestrated by the PTI, because the latter believes its leader has been jailed unjustly and its victory in last February’s elections was blocked by the security establishment.
Social media has the capacity to fuel anarchy and chaos. Its major downside is that there is very little or no moderation. There is no editor or news editor who is held responsible for the content on social media. You and I and millions like us are/can be content generators with no editorial oversight at all. Its other major drawback is that all of us start existing in silos.
Most of us tend to follow, or are followed by, like-minded people, so any interaction with the ‘other’ side becomes more and more difficult. This reinforces self-righteous, even narcissistic, behaviour and responses. On the positive, it has broken the monopoly of a few over what we get to hear and see.
Take Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. What is happening, or the so-called civilised ‘free world’ is allowing to happen, is unconscionable. Unlike in the past, where by and large only sanitised images of horrors of similar military transgressions were available to us, now the whole ugly reality slaps us in the face many times every single day.
I agree that the danger of such carpet coverage is the normalisation of such crimes against humanity, but I’d rather know what is being perpetrated on a helpless mass of humanity by a state backed by almost every Western ‘democratic’ state. There are honourable exceptions. But no more.
Social media is an instant mirror that shows us each our reality. Keir Starmer may be outraged that the former EDL leader Tommy Robinson’s Twitter account was restored by Elon Musk, and the racist rabble rouser used it to fuel, even direct, some of the recent days’ violence, but the British prime minister also needs to reflect on the role of mainstream politicians.
In the run-up to the recent elections in UK, both the Conservative Party and Labour succumbed to the temptation of using immigrants and immigration as an issue and mainstreamed the fringe, even somewhat racist, terminology and views on the subject. Both the parties also demonised the peaceful Gaza protesters.
When the police cracked down on violent racist thugs, it was accused of ‘two-tier’ policing, meaning the Gaza protesters were not shut down in a similar manner. The right-leaning X owner, a major donor of the Donald Trump campaign, endorsed the far right’s false two-tier policing accusation, to the chagrin of the British prime minister.
Elon Musk may not be fit to own a platform like X, but many of the issues that this platform (and others for that matter) exposes are not of his making. Platform owners, users, and those who hold the levers of powers in various countries also need to reflect on their own policies and conduct.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024