Hope in the face of politically immature social media discourse

BY ANTONIO P. CONTRERAS      DECEMBER 04, 2018

THE surest way to know that you have matured politically is when you are able to defend the rights of someone you disagree with politically. In a larger context, this is the ability to stand tall and assert the rule of law amidst the deafening sound of a populist mob crying for blood. It is like doctors saving the lives of their most hated enemies because it is what is embodied in the Hippocratic Oath, or teachers impressing on their students even the ideas that they personally disagree with simply because that is part of their vocation.

Frustration with the deficits of democracy is not an excuse to forget one’s ethical and moral bearings, even as it is not an excuse to abandon the parameters of the law and the Constitution.

The most difficult stance is to defend the rights of your political enemies, as it is always hard for those in power to protect the rights of those who would like to bring them down. In authoritarian and tyrannical settings where rulers are despots who behave as if they are the law, we see this conundrum being extinguished by the simple application of brute force, where there is no longer any concern for the rights of the political opposition, critics and rebels.

But we are not under a tyrannical ruler. Ours is a democracy that rests on the rule of law. The power of the state is limited by a Constitution that defines the rights of every individual and sets the parameters within which government can exercise its power and authority. Hence, we have no choice but to protect the rights of all citizens, regardless of their political ideologies and persuasions.

The concept of human rights is a construct that has been so maligned because of its association with critics of President Rodrigo Duterte. Anyone who deploys it as an argument is subjected to bashing, particularly in social media.

It is one of the most telling ironies of social media-mediated political discourse that while the intention is to democratize access to the production of political speech, that social media has also become one of the prime movers of political bigotry, fakery and quackery. It has democratized access to the production of hate and has become a double-edged sword of becoming an enabler as well as a destroyer of democracy. Social media has popularized demagoguery by enabling people to make libel and slander fashionable as if there are no legal ramifications. In conjunction with making access to free speech broader and deeper, social media has also enabled the fantasies of people to become journalists, analysts and experts even without earning the proper credentials, in the same way that Google has given many people the boldness to self-medicate. This effectively engender people to commit acts that amount to democratic malpractice.

And in social media one can see the emergence of deep contradictions. It is here that you see human rights advocacy being demeaned, diminished and demonized by people who are ironically exercising their basic human rights to freely express themselves. There are people who bash the spreading of fakery by sharing another set of fakery and people who match the biases of mainstream media with their own biased posts. Consistency, logic and reason appear to have been clearly the casualties in social media-mediated political contestations.

What is dangerous is that social media algorithms are structured to reproduce a herd mentality, and it enables the culture of echo-chambering where confirmation bias becomes the name of the game. Hence, there is very little possibility for a more open, mature and dispassionate discussion of issues. People gravitate towards their comfort zones. This is precisely why the comment threads in the social media accounts of mainstream media outfits perceived to be biased against President Duterte are populated mostly by his critics, while those of pro-Duterte blogging superstars and influencers are crowded mostly by his most loyal supporters.

It is in this regard that it can be safely argued that the use of social media for political campaigning may have been seriously undermined with the prevalence of these echo chambers. It appears that there is now very little space for the undecided to be targeted for swaying. This is simply because the undecided has either stayed away from social media because of its toxicity and vitriol, or have now migrated away from Facebook and Twitter and moved to Instagram where they can share pictures and videos of their social lives in peace, undisturbed by political noise.

But all is not lost. There is still hope.

The recent survey findings of SWS, confirmed by a similar finding by Publicus Asia, that a majority of Filipinos disagree with the President’s policy on China despite their high level of trust in him, indicates that the reality on the ground may be different from what one reads in social media, particularly in pro-Duterte pages and threads. Contrary to the apologist stance one reads in social media, majority of the people on the ground think that the President is wrong on China.

Similarly, and on the other side of the political fence, the President’s critics failed to politicize the basketball match between the University of the Philippines Fighting Maroons and the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles by asking fans to wear black. This is a clear indication that the world of social media does not correctly reflect the political persuasions prevailing in the real world.

Malacañang recently reversed or toned down the President’s pronouncements which have generated so much noise in social media, and have pumped up support from his virtual political base. After the President stated that he will match the communist Sparrows that assassinate soldiers and members of the PNP with his own Duterte death squads that will execute rebels, his spokesman later clarified that it was only an idea. And after vowing to eradicate the Parojinogs, Malacañang later clarified that what the President actually meant was that the rule of law will be fully enforced on them.

These are clear indications that Malacañang is aware that beyond the cheering crowd one reads in pro-Duterte social media pages, there is the rule of law and the Constitution.

And this was most clearly illustrated recently when pro-Duterte social media accounts and pages erupted in jubilation when Satur Ocampo and France Castro, together with their companions, were arrested and detained on allegations of child abuse, kidnapping and human trafficking. But at the end of the day, the steady hand of the law prevailed when a trial court judge ordered their release on bail.

We do not have to like the politics of Ocampo, Castro and their colleagues in the leftist movement. But the measure of political maturity is when we are able to understand and appreciate the fact that even our political enemies are entitled to their rights under the law, the same rights that we will avail of if and when, God forbid, they come to power and do the same thing to us.

https://www.manilatimes.net/hope-in-the-face-of-politically-immature-social-media-discourse/477669/