SOCIAL media platforms have become an integral part of our lives. This integration (read invasion) of social media in our daily lives goes beyond our imagination.
If not all, at least most of us are followers of someone on one or more of these social media platforms. Some social media influencers even have millions of followers.
Social media plays an important role in personal communication as well as in shaping our perception to interact with individuals and in building a social network.
More than that it is used to propagate information for academic, business, political and entertainment purposes. In a nutshell, the impact of social media is beyond the perceived and observed changes in the information landscape.
The key to social media invasion in our lives lies in its electronic speed and unprecedented global attention. Hence social media has become a common tool for propaganda. They are often flooded with fabricated or fake information. Like it or not, certain media agencies and popular social media influencers are also accused of spreading fake information using social media accounts.
Along with authentic information, the misinformation and disinformation in social media are often multiplied to build fake narratives. Social media influencers, either in a group or individually, have their own tricks to attract the attention of users and play key roles in changing perceptions, thereby affecting the political landscape.
With the goal of virality, political social media influencers diffuse their content into their target social media groups with messages aimed at a specific agenda. Needless to say, not all have efficient and prudent cognitive filters.
Whether social media-based content is harmful or violates the norms of a society or culture could be controlled by the censorship policies of the respective social media platform.
At the same time, governments have had the luxury of enjoying their authoritative directive using constitutional acts to impose restrictions on contents that are allowed to be circulated or access to social media that their citizens can subscribe to.
YouTube was blocked in Bangladesh in March 2009 after the circulation of a video revealing a display of anger by military personnel on the issue of mutiny by border guards in Dhaka during an alleged meeting with the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Apart from the restrictions on social media usage, a new tool in the form of Internet blackouts has emerged to deny citizens access to social media platforms. Recently, a nationwide Internet blackout was imposed by the Bangladesh government during the month-long anti-discrimination movement by the country's students.
Aiming to create a communication blockade, the authorities imposed an Internet blackout on July 18 that lasted for more than a week. The Internet blackout was imposed to create a communication gap among the student movement's organisers throughout the country.
It also helped the (recently ousted) government to hide the brutal crackdown on the protesting students and people. On Aug 5, 2024, Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and left the country to seek temporary shelter in India.
In Pakistan, since February, there has been a total or partial restriction on the use of social media. And now, the Internet speed has been reduced noticeably.
In India, authorities have blocked Internet access for about 27 million people in the state of Punjab to silence the violent protests against the Badalpur sexual abuse case.
In Gaza, Internet and telecommunication facilities were destroyed during the ongoing war by Israel in late 2023.
In principle, the purpose of such network disruptions to create communication blackouts is the same as the age-old war-time strategy where bridges and roads were destroyed to prevent transportation and communication of the enemy army.
However, communication blackouts in this digital era seem to have little or no impact. In the end, the truth eventually finds its way to the global audience.
The writer is deputy executive director at the International Institute of Public Policy and Management, Universiti Malaya