The trouble with social media

“The trouble with democracy is that it is messy. And a virtual and corrupted social media is no help at all.”

The trouble with social media is that it is virtual. 

We make virtual friends and virtual enemies online. We spit out our anger and cry in grief on a virtual stage where we may or may not be heard or noticed. We express our disgust over a person or group that may or may not read us, or do not even care.

Some 20 years ago, when it was known only as the Internet, social media, though limited in use by the elite who had access, was a strong and potent weapon for mobilizing direct popular action. They put their causes on email and text messages and the public would act on them. Today, social media has been democratized. Everyone with a cellphone has a microphone and a stage to gush or rave or rant or cry and react.

But what do people on Facebook actually do after they rant or “like” or “share”?  After they express anger or spew out an insult, do they go out and join a noise barrage? How automatically do we click the keys of our cellphones and laptops, the, having done our part, move on to the next item?

With so many issues bedeviling us these days, social media is more active than ever. Most people in my feed are into political issues, exposing, reacting, analyzing, name-calling. It can be very entertaining, if the issues were not so serious. But when the call is to go out in the streets and put their money where their mouths are, there are few takers. I’m not just talking about the so-called “yellows” who seem to be too lazy or too comfortable to join a rally. Even the so-called trolls who claim to support the government do not bother to respond to such calls, unless they are bussed in and fed.

It looks like social media has had its day as a major mobilizer of protest.  The instant response provides instant gratification so that we don’t feel that we have to do anything else. We say our piece, and move on. Hence, the thinning crowds at mobilizations.

Before the advent of Facebook and our other fancy digital tools, when the Internet was new and exciting and pure, and all we had were email and our Nokia cell phones to communicate with, a sitting president was forced to resign by popular demand.  Through email and texting, civil society was able to inform, organize and mobilize the public around the issues. People turned out in droves for the Jericho March around the Senate during the impeachment trial. And when the  panel of prosecutors walked out after the majority in the Senate refused to open the second envelope that many thought contained documents, which would clinch the case against the president, angry citizens responded to text messages that read: “Noise barrage at 11 p.m.” and “Go 2 EDSA. Wear black 2 mour d death of democracy.”

I responded to the call so spontaneously that I didn’t realize I was in my nightclothes and wasn’t exactly dressed for a rally. As one of the early birds at the EDSA shrine, I watched the crowd that responded to the text messages swell by the minute. The rally at the shrine closed the intersection of EDSA and Ortigas Avenue and ended on the fourth day with the departure of the president from Malacañang and the swearing in of his VP as the new president.

Thanks to the media, which covered the events closely, and texting and the Internet that were great mobilizing tools, the public was very aware of the issues and a “cyber demand” for the president’s resignation quickly collected 115,000 e-signatures via the Internet.

But it didn’t end there. When push came to shove, a very informed public actually left their computers at home and voted with their feet, joining mobilizations to make their voices heard.

From Jan. 16, 2001 when the prosecution walked out of the impeachment trial, until Jan. 20, 2001 when the president finally left the Palace, text messages in the country numbered 160 million a day, a record that earned for the Philippines the title of “texting capital of the world.”

In 2001, successful as we were in using the Internet to oust a president, its use was still limited to the educated minority who had access. But the response was massive and immediate. Now that access to the Internet has been democratized, social media seems to have lost its bite. Trolls, fake news and bad language dominate Facebook. Evidence shows that the medium has been corrupted by those who have figured out how to use it to manipulate information and the public’s reaction to it. 

The trouble with democracy is that it is messy. And a virtual and corrupted social media is no help at all.