Social media has a limited role in policy-making
There is little doubt that social media has made an impact in India, and this was highlighted to tremendous effect during the recent Chennai floods. During the floods and its aftermath, requests for rescue and relief were constantly being made using Twitter; in fact, the public messaging service was extremely useful for those looking to find shelter and the institutes offering it.
The power of social media for brands and celebrities is also amazing, it allows brands and their consumers a direct mode of access. Although this is sometimes misused, often by consumers who want to ‘blackmail’ brands, it has been a great success — today, a brand can’t afford not to be on Twitter or Facebook. Celebrities too have a direct outreach to their fans and often use the services to break news and confirm or deny what the gossip pages have written. And for media, social media and other Internet tools such as YouTube, offer new and fascinating avenues to reach new readers and viewers.
But social media and public policy-making are a different kettle of fish altogether. While Twitter and Facebook have proven their value for Government services and how such services can be improved, in political and policy discourse they have become a vicarious echo chamber. This echo chamber is often a hate-filled place where debate does not take place, rather people constantly abuse those whose views they disagree with and congratulate those whose views they agree with. Far from being a place where civilised policy discourse can, and should, take place, civility dies and abusive put-downs and hagiographical posts become the norm. This is classic mob behaviour.
This is not particular to India, but is particularly bad in India. While the reach of Facebook in India is quite remarkable, the reach of Twitter is restricted to the larger English-speaking audience. And other than the occasional issue that unites all Indians — such as cricket —the medium is generating quite a large amount of hate on both sides of the political spectrum. The online ‘army’ of political supporters rarely have official sanction and rarely understand complex issues. Yet, they want to influence issues as complex as diplomatic interactions with Pakistan with posts that demand that talks do not take place or a cricket series does not happen.
And the speed with which some of these online armadas can turn on their own is remarkable. There are undoubtedly good sensible suggestions on social media, but usually they are links to articles and columns and elucidate issues. A 140-character limit sort of restricts cogent and coherent communication. And because the hate has been allowed to fester with little or no action on clear-cut cases of abuse, particularly of some high-profile women journalists, matters have become worse and the online armies genuinely believe in their transformative vote-winning appeal. But their voices are only heard by themselves, and rarely if ever by those they should be appealing to.