Social media is now an indisputable reality. It is both a valuable resource and a dangerous weapon.
“From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.”
–Dan Rather
We live in a world where technology has ingrained itself into every aspect of our lives. It has almost become a second nature for us to document the most important events and memories of our lives online. I myself have always wondered just why it is so important for some people to share personal information with others, many of whom they have never met in real life, while distancing themselves from actual relationships in the real world. In order to understand why social media has such a profound impact on our lives, we must first understand how it functions.
Globally, social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and interact. Using social media networks has changed the way we interact in a number of ways, including the sheer number of people we can connect with. The various platforms available today allow us to interact with thousands of people from all over the world, which is why you might see people with tens of thousands of Facebook friends or Twitter followers. They don’t even need to be acquaintances you know all that well, yet your message will reach them just the same. In the absence of social media, that would not be possible. With social media networks, we have the opportunity to share opinions with a much broader audience. Another big change is that there is no filter on how we speak any longer. If you did not speak directly to an audience, you would not be able to convey your message in the past, no matter how much freedom of speech you had. The internet now allows us to communicate uncensored, with thousands or even millions of people.
Though social media may have started as a simple way to communicate and reach people online, as it became a popular means of communication, it drew the attention of commercial businesses and advertisers. Social media allows people a personalized user experience, with the ability to choose which content they wish to see and interact with and which content they would rather not see or interact with. This personalization allows the social media algorithms to carefully curate users into groups, categorized by a number of different factors, i.e., likes, dislikes, gender, location, and interests, etc. This categorization allows advertisers the opportunity to create content tailored to the said group’s interests and market their product or service more efficiently.
Social media allows people a personalized user experience, with the ability to choose which content they wish to see and interact with and which content they would rather not see or interact with.
Social media has also led to the rise of many social movements over the years, raising awareness towards social phenomena that would otherwise not receive much attention on traditional media. Examples of such movements being the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter campaigns.
The #metoo campaign first began in 2006 to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in the society. When the movement first began, it did not get much recognition and was soon forgotten to time. In 2017, when the phrase was used as a hashtag on Twitter following the revelations surrounding the American film producer Harvey Weinstein and his predatory actions, it became a global movement.
Another instance of social media elevating a social campaign can be seen in the case of the Black Lives Matter movement. Social media platforms have been used by minorities, such as African Americans, as a means for political engagement and social activism for many years. In 2020, after the unlawful killing of an unarmed black man, George Flloyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, widespread protests erupted all over the U.S. It was later discovered that the online community known as “Black Twitter” has been using the social media platforms to collectively organize, offer support and increase awareness for black people about the issues that matter to their community.
Over the years, there have been many instances of social media data being misused by the third parties. Of the many scandals, two really stand out in my mind, the first being the 2013 Prism Scandal. In June 2013, a National Security Agency (NSA) document was leaked in the form of PowerPoint slides. Edward Snowden, a former computer security contractor, leaked classified information about two surveillance programs being conducted by the NSA. One of the programs was collecting information from U.S. internet service providers, called the ‘PRISM’ program. It was designed to target non-Americans, but also collected a massive amount of information from Americans that came into contact with them. As you could imagine, the news caught on like a wildfire and sparked outrage among the people of America. It was a startling revelation for many in terms of what something as simple as internet data can be used for.
A more recent example of data being harvested from social media users for malicious intentions is the NSO Pegasus scandal. Imagine a weapon that is so powerful that it can potentially target every single cellphone user on the planet. The NSO group, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, developed an extremely powerful spyware which did just that. The Pegasus software was purchased by a number of countries, allowing them to gain remote access to people’s mobile devices without their knowledge. It was used to target so-called enemies of the state, i.e., journalists, dissidents and human rights activists. Not only was this a gross violation of people’s right to privacy, it was yet another example of the dark side of information technology (IT).
Government agencies and third-party organizations are not the only ones that use social media as a tool to advance their personal agendas. Politicians, in this case, are not any better. During her time as the U.S. Secretary of State in the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton found herself in hot water when she used a private email server for official public communications rather than an official State Department’s email account. Though this may not seem like a big deal, it must be remembered that she was the Secretary of State at the time, an extremely sensitive post that allowed her access to highly confidential documents. Some members of the U.S. Congress even contended that Clinton’s use of a private email system violated the federal law and the State Department protocols and procedures. The case was even a major point of discussion during the 2016 presidential election; however, it was soon overshadowed by reports of Russian hacking and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The most recent string of humiliations is the case of the EU DisinfoLab’s 2023 report “Bad Sources”. The investigation looks into a number of organizations, bloggers and journalists who are regularly quoted by Asian News International (ANI), only to find out that they are non-existent.
In 2016, Senator Ted Cruz allegedly hired Cambridge Analytica, a former British political consulting firm, to aid his presidential campaign. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) of America reported that Cruz had paid the company USD 5.8 million for its services. What the company did was use, or more accurately misuse, 50 million Facebook users’ personal data to develop psychological profiles on individual voters so that campaigners could tailor their presidential campaigns to target mass audiences. After Cruz dropped out of the race, the company started to aid former U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign. However, Cambridge Analytica was not the only aid Trump had in winning the elections. According to the U.S. intelligence community, President Putin was quite invested in the results of the 2016 Presidential elections. Project Lakhta was the Russians’ attempt to harm the Clinton campaign and boost Donald Trump’s candidacy, as well as a means of increasing political and social discord in the U.S. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), located in Saint Petersbug, created thousands of social media accounts to promote events in favor of Trump and against Clinton. They reached million of users between 2013 and 2017, spreading misinformation and fake articles that originated from Russian-controlled media.
Social media has often been used as an engine of instability in various regions of the world. In the early 2010s, a wave of demonstrations swept across the Middle East and North Africa. Social media definitely played a huge role in allowing people to communicate and interact with other participants of political protests, with many using the platforms to organize demonstrations, disseminate vital information regarding their activities and raising awareness as to what was occurring on the ground. According to the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam research, there were times when online discourse sparked mass protests on the ground and social media played an integral role in shaping people’s perceptions regarding the Arab Spring. A similar situation presents itself to us today, with the war between Russia and Ukraine. Massachusetts Institute of Technology sees the war in Europe as the world’s very first cyberwar. Claiming that the war is being determined, not by weaponry or advanced war tactics, but by how the world at large is perceiving the events. In 2014, the IRA launched a massive misinformation campaign during Russia’s annexation of Crimea and those efforts have now been transferred to Russia’s war in Ukraine. It does not even matter how witty or clever, but what truly makes for a great cyberwar is how susceptible the audience is.
There may not be a conventional war being waged in our part of the world, but there is very much a battle of narratives being fought virtually every day. With over 63% of the population under the age of 35, of which 25% are active internet users, social media is a permanent fixture in the Pakistani society. And if the various disinformation campaigns launched by our neighbors are anything to go by, they are quite aware of just how ingrained social media is in the lives of our people. In 2020, the EU DisinfoLab uncovered a massive operation targeting international institutions and serving Indian interests. Indian Chronicles, the name given to this operation, resurrected dead media, think-tanks and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). In some cases, it even resurrected dead people. The network was operating in Brussels and Geneva and created content meant to undermine Pakistan. In 2022, similar humiliation was once more suffered by India when their “My Heart Belongs to Kashmir” covert operation was discovered and subsequently made public. However, it seems that wasn’t enough and in the most recent string of humiliations is the case of the EU DisinfoLab’s 2023 report “Bad Sources”. The investigation looks into a number of organizations, bloggers and journalists who are regularly quoted by Asian News International (ANI), only to find out that they are non-existent.
Terrorists are also exploiting social media to proliferate their ideology, hate speech, recruitment and veiled messaging. When comparing the overall aspects of using social media, it appears that there are more disadvantages than the advantages, although this point is debatable and depends on the usage, and thus varies from person to person. So what is the way forward? In a world that is constantly changing and developing new ways of information sharing, using social media may seem like a daunting task. But the more we interact with new technologies, the easier it will be to evolve with them.
For young people, it is much easier to keep track of the rapid development in technology because they themselves evolve just as fast. This is a double-edged sword, though it is easier for the youth to interact with and understand how the technology works, they aren’t often wise enough to pick up on the darker side of social media platforms and that is when their susceptibility becomes a problem. We should educate our youth on the correct way to use social media, remaining aware of their virtual surroundings and the potential threats that may be present, the same way we would teach them to be aware of their actual surroundings. Only then will they be able to differentiate between what is and isn’t real.
We have already introduced legislation that limits the type of information being shared on the social media in Pakistan, specifically to ensure malicious content that may potentially discredit state institutions is not being propagated through social media. Our state institutions must remain vigilant and keep an eye out for any misinformation campaign that may be lurking on social media and combat it in a timely and precise manner to negate its impacts on our societal discourse.
Social media is now an indisputable reality. It is both a valuable resource and a dangerous weapon. It can be an influential tool for manipulation, both by individuals and organizations, and it can have a noteworthy impact on the society. It can be used to proliferate fabricated information and propaganda, to sway public opinion and behavior, and to target susceptible people and groups. The effects of social media manipulation are unfavorable to the society, and thus need to be countered effectively. Therefore, people should be cognizant of social media’s potential for manipulation and take precautionary steps. To defend themselves, they need to be critical of the information they see online by verifying the source of information and confirming it to be authentic, and not sharing any information without first checking for its accuracy and reliability.
The writer is a Strategic Communications graduate from Loughborough University.
E-mail: aizafdogar@gmail.com
