Social media - the road to anarchy

Social media – the road to anarchy

BY?ROSHAN DOUG?

(First published on www.roshandoug.com THURSDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2021)?

I was watching David Baddiel’s BBC documentary about social media the other day. It showed how the social media phenomenon and its astronomical usage in the last two or three decades have affected us and our interaction with one another.

Social media has given rise to our unprecedented urge to voice our opinions and to be heard – factors that dictate our behaviour and our attitude to one another. We have become an angry society, shouting abuse at one another because we are adamant that we, ourselves – with the views we hold – are right and everyone else is wrong. Coupled with the rise of social justice warriors, intolerance of difference, and an increasing popularity of cancel culture, what – we might ask – is our obligation to humanity and civil decencies?

There’s no doubt that there’s been a rise in people demonstrating their genuine anger (fuelled by their abject hatred towards certain celebrities and social influencers) or, a pure overwhelming need to be noticed. Instead of opening ourselves to others and otherness, we have become parochial, divisive and dangerous. We are governed by little more than fear and loathing. It’s partly due the democratisation of truth and lies, the distinction between information and misinformation, the blurring of news and fake news, and the difference between science and the science. The new pandemic world is complex, confusing and confounding. It has dismantled the norm.

We hold a belief that governments and politicians have our interest at heart, that we are living in a free, democratic country, where the great and the good don’t lie to us. They (our leaders) have made us believe that we are in it together. But we are not. It’s one rule for them; another for the masses. Moreover, we are comatosed, programmed to behave in a certain way, talk in a certain way and act in a certain way that (ultimately) promotes our government’s social policy.

Such totalitarian features have contributed in the formation of a cyber society that is the equivalent of wild west America. This is because social media has given birth to lawlessness and mob mentality in which people dish out their justice without referring to proportionality or redemption. There’s no such thing as compassion or forgiveness. These – along with civility, respect and deference – have been sacrificed and replaced with stark bigotry, overt self-assurance, and destructive individualism. We have torn up the foundations that make a society – cohesion, harmony and mutual understanding – and substituted these for division, suspicion and anarchy.

Social media has essentially altered the rules of engagement. Today people are victimised for stating their opinion or for casting doubts on others’ view points or simply questioning social policy. They are cancelled or vilified resulting in their public humiliation, abuse, and loss of income. For instance, there is evidence that people have been dismissed from employment for doing nothing but giving a perspective or for simply challenging our government’s vaccination programme. People have been quick to take offence and express their outrage. We have closed the doors to others and otherness because members of the public have become our government’s operatives, snitching on one another, and passing judgment and sentences in a virtual reality world of social media.

Essentially, social media has created a dystopian world – a North Korean cyber space – where you are not allowed to opine or show signs of descension. You are not permitted to disagree with the prevailing world view presented either by the government or the media because ‘they’ will brand you a nut case or conspiracy theorist. Take, for instance, people who question the moon landing, Covid figures, the safety of the vaccine, the role of the NHS, the Holocaust etc. How quickly they are ridiculed for simply considering an alternative perspective, painting a reality unsanctioned by the political apparatus. That’s mind control and mass manipulation. That’s not the society I want for my children and grand children because that’s the road to an Orwellian world and Big Brother. Instead I want to see dissension, debate and discourse no matter how ridiculous it might sound to the untutored ear. I want an alternative reality even if I don’t accept it or believe in it.

If we are to safeguard the importance of critical thinking especially in education and schooling, we have to start by arguing for difference – difference in opinions, perspectives and arguments. Otherwise – years down the line – we will regret how easily we gave into state control, how quickly we yielded, and how we capitulated without even some feeble resistance. And that, indeed, will be shameful for all concerned, for all who believe in the power of thought and freedom speech. We must resist such insouciance.