From The Arab spring in 2011, the Ukrainian protests that culminated to the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014 to the 2018 Sudan protests that led to the ouster of the 30 year Dictator Omar Al-Bashir, Social media has played an important role not only in changing how people communicate but also transforming the reach and intensity of the communication in real time thus augmenting the struggle for democracy throughout the world.
What has changed is not just the way people communicate but the reach and intensity of this communication in real time – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. By transcending national borders and connecting like-minded individuals within milliseconds, the new forms of interaction facilitated by social media have held the power to shake the very foundations of government itself.
But is a shift imminent ? Across the world Social media has not only augmented the spread of democracy but has given a voice to the growing trends on attack on democracy. Social media has figured significantly in political upheavals around the world in the past few years. including others. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, and the far right’s gains in Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, France, Duterte’s ascent to power and many others across Africa.
What were traditionally spaces for protest and organizing hugely influencing the spread of democracy across the world are today turning to be the spaces for curtailing democracy and spreading authoritarianism.
The fast and immense shift to go from public squares on the struggle for democracy to a Donald Trump world highlights the turning of the the slide towards use of social media to spread misinformation, doubt and post truth propaganda that has worked towards curtailing the progress of democracy.
What were traditionally spaces for protest and organizing hugely influencing the spread of democracy across the world are today turning to be the spaces for curtailing democracy and spreading authoritarianism.
Despots, authoritarians and their instruments have realized the power social media gives to people and are thus always on the lookout for attempts to manipulate real and true stories by using the power of algorithms to paint a different and often misguided, far from the truth storylines diluting the spaces through which people obtained factual information.
Power always finds the means to learn from its shortcomings and powerful tools have historically fallen into its hands. This is a hard lesson of history but a solid one. It is key to understanding how, in such a short time we have gone from the spread and use of social media being hailed as tools of freedom and change to being blamed for being a thorn in the life of democracy for giving room to rising authoritarianism, increased polarization and election meddling by Russia and others.
The huge shift from the usual public, collective politics to the more individualized, private and scattered one, with political actors gatherings more and more personal data to figure out how to push just the right buttons coupled with social media giants maximizing on profits through the power of algorithms has meant the spread of misinformation and erosion of facts tilting gains previously made in using social media to promote democracy across the world.
It is key to understanding how, in such a short time we have gone from the spread and use of social media being hailed as tools of freedom and change to being blamed for being a thorn in the struggle for democracy.
If the gains of social media promoting the growth democracy and freedoms across the world needs to be protected, the process of instituting checks and balances for social media giants and redesigning our societal safeguards in the changing politics of today should be a priority.