[The Influence of Social Media On Democracy]
In the modern world, social media has emerged as a powerful tool for communication and information sharing. Social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have millions of users worldwide, and people from different backgrounds and cultures use them to share their thoughts and opinions on various issues.
In the past decade usage of social media has been extensively increased by Politicians and Political Parties to influence people towards winning their own political objectives over their opponents. Now the majority of the Political Parties have their own managed IT Wings to cope with today's digital age. These IT Wings are often accused of spreading propaganda to manipulate public opinion and gain electoral advantage by creating crafted social media content and spreading them through WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube tools.
When political parties spread false news, it can lead to a loss of trust in the media and other institutions that are meant to provide reliable information. If the media also supports and spreads this fake propaganda it is a really alarming situation for the country's democratic system.
Spreading fake news can create confusion and undermine people's ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. This can lead to the spread of rumours and conspiracy theories, which can have serious consequences. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, false information about the virus and its treatment was rampant on social media platforms, leading to confusion and harm to public health. Not to forget about the misinformation as cures like using Paracetamol can cure Covid-19, Consuming cow urine or dung can cure COVID-19, and Eating garlic or ginger can prevent COVID-19, Home remedies can cure COVID-19 like drinking warm water, gargling with salt water, and using steam inhalation, Vitamin C can cure COVID-19. They might support but they are disproven that it won't cure Covid-19. Politicians came up with publicity options like Candle Jalao, Thalee Bajao, etc., and influenced people to believe with the support of fake social media posts.
Another recent incident happened in Tamil Nadu State where some political parties did spread articles with fabricated videos/images mentioning Bihar Migrants are attacked in Tamil Nadu State. Several workers have moved from Bihar to Tamil Nadu in search of employment and better financial opportunities. The messages from senior political leaders in Bihar created a tense situation in the families in Bihar who got worried about their family members working in Tamil Nadu. Thankfully, the government of Tamil Nadu took swift action and cleared the air before the situation goes out of control. When verified by investigative agencies the images/videos that are circulated by senior leaders came out as Fabricated ones. Any slip of the emotions in this situation could have turned two Indian states and the people in Havoc.[Ref: 2]
This kind of situation can lead to a lack of faith in democratic processes and the rule of law, which is harmful to the functioning of a democratic society. The impact of such false news on the common man can be far-reaching and detrimental, as it can lead to the erosion of trust, the proliferation of misinformation, and the polarisation of society. The polarising effect of false news can also lead to social unrest and even violence. These false narratives can also lead to the widening of the political divide between different groups. This can lead to a breakdown in dialogue and compromise, which is necessary for a functioning democracy.
There is an Army of people behind many political parties who are employed to create biased propaganda which is lenient on their Political Organisation. These IT Wings are becoming a necessary entity for all the political parties and they realised that people's thoughts can be easily influenced by playing the message in the perceptional rhythm.
In developing nations like India, there is a significant gap between the rich and the poor, and only a small percentage of people are wealthy and also computer-literate. We can consider this between 10 to 20%. The majority of the new social media articles will come from this set of people including their opinionated Political perceptions. These messages will be consumed by the other 90% of people.
If we keenly observe the difference between the winning and losing party's vote difference is below 10% in majority places. So, these IT Cells of political parties target to make at least 10% of people to be fooled by creating an illusion to get into their side by crafting manipulated messages. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that exposing someone to the same untruth multiple times will enhance their likelihood of accepting it as truth.
Being above was the primary idea in my head that prompted me to call this essay 10:90=10.
Unfortunately, many of these people fall prey to these social media influence messages, and they are forgetting about their own important and basic needs as the majority of these messages are intelligently crafted to tune their emotions. When emotions run high, intellect will not work efficiently.
The IT Wings of political parties are enormously funded by their leadership. IT Wings uses this fund towards using Data Mining and Data Analytics Tools extensively [Ref: 4]. These tools analyse the targeted group of people's social media posts along with their personal ethnic/race/religion/region/language details. With these inputs, IT Wings crafts propaganda pieces and makes them reach the targeted people. Leaders also understood that this is an easy investment than addressing the people's basic needs to get the people's favour with minimised investment.
For example, to construct a well-established hospital an establishment needs 50 to 100 crore rupees. The impact of this Hospital after construction will have much influence on the voting outcome to a limited area of 10 to 15 KM to the maximum. Probably the motivation could be, by employing a few people in their media cell and crafting a message and getting publicity for a small road inauguration which is worth 1 Crore to reach all over will breed more browny points than doing a bigger and better job. It is the responsibility of citizens to disprove this apprehension.
The situation is worse in countries where the basic needs of the people are not met, and poverty, unemployment, inflation, and lack of affordable education and healthcare are widespread. In such countries, social media influence posts can be very damaging as they distract people from their real needs and encourage them to focus on divisive issues like religion, race, and region.
The majority of IT Wings have their own BOTs which are like fake users who will spread this misinformation across the social media platforms as real people. This makes the readers believe that the support for this crafted argument is high and in turn, gets influenced. In recent investigations by some of the platforms came out that more than 50% of followers of popular leaders on Twitter and Facebook are fake. For example, for The world's most populous leader Narendra Modi, 60% of followers' accounts are fake based on a study by Twiplomacy [Ref: 3]. This is not limited to one leader, this pattern is with the majority of the leaders.
For example, in some countries, political parties use social media to create a divide between different religions/races and ethnic groups. They spread hate speech and propaganda to fuel tensions between communities and create a sense of fear and mistrust. This not only diverts attention from the real issues facing the people but also leads to violence and unrest. Unfortunately, the people who create these posts are 0.0001% but it will reach as many as 50% to 70% of people to view and get influenced. A recent example is The attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 [Ref: 1]. This is the place where the United State Congress and the Legislative branch of Government reside. This was attacked by more than 2000 people, which was motivated by Social media misinformation posts that made false claims that the Election had been stolen from Trump.
Various nations will employ various strategies to persuade voters. For instance, Many political parties in India use WhatsApp groups to promote their carefully designed propaganda.
Let me use the largest political party in India/World as an example, the BJP which is also referred to as a great electioneering party, to illustrate the breadth of social media engineering: Bihar is a state in India with approximately 70 million voters. During Bihar Elections BJP set up in advance with 9,500 IT cell leaders and 72,000 WhatsApp groups [Ref: 7]. In the recent Gujarat State elections, 10,000 volunteers managing 50,000 WhatsApp groups maintained to spread their IT Cell-crafted messages in Gujarat which has 5 Crore voters. [Ref: 8]. This is the great power of Social media influence. BJP is also the highest spender on Facebook spending in the last many years. BJP also alleged that they had influenced top executives on Facebook to ensure flagging is not done for their propaganda according to one of the WallStreet Journal articles [Ref:9].
The BJP swept to victory in Parliamentary elections held in the previous ten years. The BJP is renowned for being an excellent electoral winning machine and also the most popular party in India. It is a well-known fact that BJP has outperformed every other party in India when it comes to connecting with voters online using social media engineering. The mechanics and methods used for reaching out played a big part in winning the elections. Given the success of this model, other political parties began adopting it when using social media for elections. Thus, most Indian political parties have their own social media wing and have their own volunteers to create and connect voters by creating thousands of Whatsapp groups.
Parties are making sure that at least one Whatsapp group is set up with trained volunteers responsible for monitoring and distributing their IT Warfare for every polling booth. Now, this become a Pattern.
I can tell you that false propaganda generated by IT wings of political parties is a well-known phenomenon, and it has been documented by various organisations and individuals.
There have been several instances where political parties have used social media platforms and other online channels to spread false information or propaganda to influence public opinion. This propaganda can take many forms, such as fake news, doctored images or videos, misleading statistics, and biased or inflammatory messages.
One such instance includes the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a political consulting firm was accused of using Facebook data to influence voter behaviour during the 2016 US presidential election, and the recent controversy surrounding the use of Twitter bots by certain political parties to manipulate online discourse.
As there is no automatic Fact Checking implemented in any Social media platforms, social media influence posts can also lead to misinformation and fake news, which can be very harmful. Misinformation can lead to wrong decisions being made by individuals and governments, which can have serious consequences. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation about the virus and vaccines spread through social media led to many people refusing to get vaccinated, leading to more infections and deaths, especially in developed nations like the US.
In conclusion, social media is a powerful tool that can be used to influence people but It is also important for individuals and governments to be aware of these risks and take steps to mitigate them. People must focus on their basic needs, and politicians should be held accountable for addressing real issues rather than living their own lives.
All social media platforms should have an eye to monitor the number of crafted messages that are getting delivered using these Bots/FakeAccounts and Flag them immediately by tagging that with a caution indicator. In general, much of the content used/generated by Bots uses the same template.
Sorry No offence to anyone. It is also very important for all responsible citizens to what were the expectations while voting for a particular party in previous elections and validate when it is forwarded or crafting a message which is not aligned with the earlier poll promises. Before getting into bullying with the influence of social media perceptions, one should not forget the past difficulties and the hope for which people voted for the current leadership and asking questions to the leadership is not demeaning democracy. Rather it glorifies democracy.
People should increase their contribution by raising flags and also standing against fake messages by alerting them. People should work more to report fake messages than forwarding the messages. People should also educate others to be cautious against these fabricated messages and their impact on social life. People should be encouraged and empowered to look for Evidence-based information to verify sources.
To counter this problem, it is necessary to promote media literacy and critical thinking skills among the public, regulate social media platforms to prevent the spread of false news, and hold political parties accountable for spreading propaganda. Only then we can ensure that the public has access to accurate information and that democracy can function effectively.
As a closure: Just think about the topics for the last 10 politically oriented messages Forwarded. How many of them are addressing basic needs like Food, Education, Health and Employment in a country where 80 Crore people received free rations in India during the Covid-19 time [Ref:5] and around 10 Crore people living in poverty [Ref: 6]
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1 comment:
Well said Rathnam gaaru ,it’s loaded info for current generation ,unbiased articulation.
Thanks
SankarReddyMB
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