Bencyrus Ellorin
KEYBOARD warriors will remain in the keyboards.
Whether they will make lasting impact or be game changers remains to be seen. Of course, so-called weaponized social media has contributed to the victory of President Duterte, and well, the recent victory of Donald Trump in US.
Digital space or the virtual space has rapidly gained ground in our society. Social media listening devices measure the noise created for specific issues and commodities. This noise can be measured by website hits, page views, Facebook likes, shares and comments.
Digital promotions of products and goods are usually measured by how long readers spend on a website and/or webpage. These are considered quality hits which could influence a buyer’s or decision maker’s preference. Websites also have interactive features like the comment section. But many sites have either removed these or strictly regulate interaction because of trolling. Troll attacks destroy informed and logical discussion of ideas. Unknown trolls are not accountable for their online behavior.
As social media gains more traction in digital interaction, audience or stakeholder engagement has gained new levels. Netizens can publish their stories and what-have-they on their Facebook pages or share articles and views they agree with. Micro blogs can also be tweeted, shared and commented upon.
Interactions can be intense. Often, a better idea or well-argued position takes ground. But even the brightest idea can be drowned by irrelevant ideas coming from trolls or anonymous netizens.
These keyboard warriors have brought their presence to digital space in the 2016 elections up to the present. Not only are verifited and vetted contents being shared, like and hotly debated. Soon trolls developed fake contents from fake news sites and published these on social media.
In no time, it became obvious how gullible the so-called educated and literates are. Satire or spoof pieces have been considered seriously, debated, quarreled. Many netizens are unabashed at their failure to discern figures of speech from simple statements. Soon, fake news spread all over social media and the blogosphere. The systematic vilification campaign against the opposition has brought to new levels of rapacity online black hat tactics.
But has the virtual world invaded real social space? Can they really change society?
In a country where Internet penetration is at best around 40 percent, and a significant segment of those who have access to the Internet are there to use free voice and data messaging apps, often to look for greener pastures, and the hoards of young people, hooked in online games, it would be safe to assume that the number of “informed” users or those online are there to read contents to increase their social awareness, learn new things to help decision making, is much lower.
Unlike the Arab Spring that resulted in sweeping reforms in autocratic countries in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) five to six years ago, social media may have a role in putting to power President Duterte, but it remains to be seen if this virtual noise can transform into a broad citizen participation in the government’s reform agenda.
I have been active in community-based anti-drugs campaign, working hand-in-hand with the police, local government and civil society groups. I still have to see a rabid supporter of this administration, a noisy online campaigner going out of his or her way to help rid our society of the illegal drugs menace.
I would suspect this fanaticism to the current occupant of Malacanang is all virtual vitriol--no fangs, no bite.
