Social Media has for long been considered the fourth pillar of democracy owing to its potential to not just report what is happening around the world but to build a public opinion about the ongoing issues. The term ‘democracy’ implies the participation of people. Media facilitates this participation.
The emergence of social media, however, has changed the way in which people now participate in democracy. Compared to traditional media, social media has a larger reach, is easily accessible, enables mass participation and provides instant updates. These factors have led to a situation where people rely more on social media than their traditional counterparts, to become aware of their surroundings and participate in discussions- political, economic, or otherwise, which in turn strengthens democracy. However, social media does not have only positive implications on democracy. On the flip side of the coin, it has been misused a number of times, often becoming the antithesis of democracy. The following headings discuss the role played by social media in a democratic setup, both positive and negative.
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Election Campaigning
Free and fair elections are undoubtedly one of the most important elements of modern democracy, and election campaigning forms very much a part of it. Political campaigning is not limited to physical rallies and posters. Social media has entered the realm of campaigning and is extensively being used by various political leaders as well as political parties to communicate their agendas to the general public. The ubiquitous nature of the Internet allows the leaders and political parties to simultaneously communicate with the voters across regions.
Social media is used for political campaigning through commercials, blogs, tweets etc. using social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, to announce a candidate running for the election, organize physical campaigning, recruit supporters and volunteers, seek funds, mobilize voters, share the party’s election manifesto and the candidate’s message to the general public, among other things.
The ex-President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, is famous for effectively harnessing the potential of social media as his campaign strategy in the 2008 Presidential Campaign. Since young voters rely more on social media compared to conventional media, social media was used to establish a contemporary voter-politician relationship between Barack Obama and the voters. Regular voting reminders were sent on Twitter, and Facebook was used as a platform to interact with people. As a result, President Obama maintained a significant lead in both Facebook likes and Twitter followers over his rival Governor Romney during his election campaign. The significant difference in the response on social media was translated into the historic win of Barack Obama as the first Africa-American President of the United States of America.[1]
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The field of social media campaigning has not been left unexplored by Indian politicians and political parties. Launched in 2012, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ran its political agenda through social media and emerged victorious in Delhi Assembly polls. AAP used social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to interact with voters, share their election manifesto and raise funds, thus, keeping the election expense within the limit. Indian media reported that Arvind Kejriwal, the founder of AAP had admitted to adopting the strategies used by Barack Obama in 2008.[2]
Furthermore, in the 2019 general elections in India, there were around 15 million voters who were aged between 18 to 19 years. In light of these statistics and the interest of youngsters in social media platforms, various political parties adopted full-fledged social media campaigns to communicate with the large audience of voters, which in turn helped the parties to save their money, time and resources. Social media political campaigning has benefits other than saving the time and resources of the political party. Politicians are able to gauge their communication by viewing direct responses to their social media campaigning on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
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Taking into account the potential of social media campaigning in the 2019 elections, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), in consultation with the Election Commission of India (ECI) had developed a set of ‘Voluntary Code of Ethics’[3] to be adopted by various social media platforms to ensure free, fair and ethical use of social media in order to maintain the integrity of the electoral process. By virtue of this Code, the social media platforms were required to develop a notification mechanism for violations of section 126[4] of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951.[5]
Although the potential of social media has been used to a great extent by various political parties for election campaigning, however, it is imperative to understand that social media platforms sometimes go overboard for political purposes. In the 2020 Presidential election in the United States, there were numerous reports of Facebook posting ads of Donald Trump, violating its own pre-election policies wherein it had announced that it would stop accepting new political ads after 27th October and would indefinitely ban all political ads after the polls close. However, on the first day of the moratorium, several ads appeared on the platform which was later taken down after being flagged.[6] Furthermore, social media political campaigning also has another drawback. After social media has been used for campaigning to the maximum extent possible, politicians use it as a one-way communication tool, rarely engaging in discussions with the citizens. This continues after they have been elected; they use social media to inform the people of their constituencies about different policies, rather than engaging in discussions with them.
Political Discussions
A healthy democratic setup gives utmost importance to public participation as the government is “of the people, for the people and by the people”[7]. Public participation can best be achieved by expressing one’s political views and discussing them with others. Efficient democratic deliberation assumes citizens as equal participants where opposing points of view are not only accepted but encouraged, and the main goal is to achieve a rationally motivated consensus.
From the point of view of political involvement, social media has taken the power of political messaging from the mass media model and firmly placed it into the peer-to-peer, public dialogue. It provides an environment where the ‘aam aadmi’ of a country is able to freely express his political opinions and expectations, with the use of his phone/device. Earlier, only those individuals could be a part of political discussions who read newspapers, watched news channels or discussed politics at the nukkad of the village. However, the tech-savvy nature of social media campaigning effectively makes the youth a part of political discussion as well. They take time to analyse and discuss political issues. Such discussions also influence administrative decision making.
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One of the examples of healthy political discussion is the 2015 #SOTU,[8] which enabled Twitter users to react to the topics covered by Barack Obama in the State of the Union address. There were around 2.6 million tweets in this context.
However, social media has the potential to be misused to manipulate individuals. It should always be kept in mind that “computer technologies should be used to serve the interests of the people and not corporate elites, to inform and enlighten individuals rather than to manipulate them, to articulate their own experiences and interests, and to promote democratic debate and diversity, allowing a full range of voices and ideas to become part of the cyberdemocracy of the future.”[9]
Cyber Governance
Social media also plays a vital role in cyber governance i.e. the use of information and communication technologies to support governance. Taking the example of India, various Ministries and the Ministers of the respective Ministries have their official social media handles which they use to perform their functions. These social media handles, on one hand, help the citizen to easily let the concerned Minister/Ministry know about the grievances faced by him, and on the other hand, help the concerned Minister/Ministry to respond and resolve the grievance raised.
The peculiar feature of cyber governance is the element of time and resources used to raise concerns. Earlier, citizens had to write formal letters to the concerned Minister/Ministry and wait for days for a response. This traditional system becomes futile if the situation requires urgent intervention. Therefore, social media has become a boon for cyber governance.
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The micro-blogging site Twitter was extensively used by late Sushma Swaraj, ex-Minister of External Affairs, to resolve the issues faced by Indian citizens trapped abroad. She rescued 168 Indians trapped in Iraq by acting on a video that was tweeted to her, and helped a number of other individuals, Indians as well as foreigners, to return to their homeland.[10]
Facilitator of political change in Arab nations
Social media platforms have also been used to accelerate revolutions in many Arab countries.
During 2010-11, a number of campaigns of civil resistance and street demonstrations took place in Tunisia. These efforts led to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. During this process, social media played a positive role by spreading awareness among people, helping people to organize themselves using Facebook and clearing the clouds of misinformation by sharing photos and videos.[11]
Social media also played a key role in ending the 30 years long misrule by President Hosni Mubarak of the National Democratic Party in Egypt. It all started with a photograph being posted on Facebook. The photograph depicted a young man named Khaled Mohamed Saeed who was brutally beaten to death by the Egyptian police. This prompted an agitated Ghomin to start a Facebook page named ‘Saeed’ to highlight the scenario in Egypt. The number of followers of this Facebook page increased from 300 to 25,000 in just three months. The online expression of distress of the regime of President Mubarak spread to the streets of Egypt wherein the historic Tahrir Square in Cairo was filled with protestors shouting ‘We are all Khaled Saeed’. As a result, President Mubarak was forced to resign and dissolve his party.[12]
2.6. As a tool of manipulation
Social media has also been used to manipulate the political choices of voters. This has a detrimental effect on the democratic setup of a country, where manipulation does not find a place.
The 2016 United States Presidential election was at the central stage of the allegations of the use of social media to manipulate elections. Facebook admitted that Russian Groups Company bought $100,000 worth of ads with the purpose of spreading disinformation and propaganda.[13] Furthermore, Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, found itself in deep trouble over the United States 2016 Presential Elections involving Presidential candidate Donald Trump. It was found that it used deceptive means to gain access to data of about 87 million Facebook users, without their consent or knowledge. It was alleged that the firm got hold of such data through researcher Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian American who worked at the University of Cambridge. He built a Facebook app, which was actually a personality quiz. Around 2,70,000 people were paid to take this quiz, under the shadow of research. However, the catch was that the quiz was designed to access the Facebook data of the people taking the quiz, as well as the data of the people who they are friends with. The data included personal information on where users lived and what pages they liked, which in turn helped Cambridge Analytica to build psychological profiles of the quiz takers that analysed characteristics and personality traits. This kind of information was later used to tailor political messaging for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.[14]
The attempts of manipulation directly go against individual autonomy as well as privacy enjoyed by the individuals.
As a Tool of Repression
Social media has been used to propagate one’s ideas and opinions. However, this platform has also been used by different organizations to propagate communal, racist and sociological tensions. Taking into account the possibility of exploitation of social media by such organizations, the Information Technology Act, 2000 contains a provision[15] which allows the Central Government to block public access to information on social media, on certain grounds namely in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above. These grounds are identical to the grounds mentioned under Article 19(2), based on which freedom of speech and expression can be curtailed by the government.
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Since the power to block public access to information on the Internet and social media sites violate the freedom of speech and expression enjoyed by the citizens of India, such power should be used cautiously by the government. However, in recent times, the Central Government has overused this power to suppress genuine political discussion on social media. Some examples include the government’s order to Twitter to block certain tweets and accounts pertaining to farmer’s protests, anti-CAA protests as well as those criticizing the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the government[16]. These blocking orders highlight the misuse of power by the Government to curb political criticism, which is detrimental for the largest democracy in the world.
Conclusion
The advent of social media has taken democracy a step further by firstly, facilitating public discussions on important issues, whether political, religious, social or economic, secondly, providing a greater reach to election campaigning with minimal time and resources, thirdly, ensuring that the grievances of individuals reach the concerned authorities in time, and lastly, facilitating and accelerating political revolutions in countries. However, the use of social media in democracy has a flip side as well, which is highlighted by its use in manipulating the opinions of individuals and suppressing the voices of people raising genuine concerns on the social media platforms.
Therefore, though social media has vast potential to uphold and propagate democratic principles, however, it should only be used in a bona fide manner to further lawful political interests. Furthermore, social media, in absence of a privacy and data protection regime in a country, is highly susceptible to exploitation by organizations who manipulate the psychology of individuals by using the data of social media users, without their consent, or even knowledge.
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[1] Jennifer Aaker & Victoria Chang, Obama and the Power of Social Media and Technology, STANFORD BUSINESS (Feb. 28, 2021, 9:20 PM), https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/case-studies/obama-power-social-media-technology.
[2] Sevathi Ninan, Learning media strategy from AAP, LIVE MINT (Apr. 28, 2021, 9:30 PM), https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/HwHIPVrpDJC2Ax0TcTv03N/Learning-media-strategy-from-AAP.html.
[3]PIB,https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1586297#:~:text=Internet%20%26%20Mobile%20Association%20of%20India,bye%20elections%20being%20held%20simultaneously (last visited Apr. 26, 2021).
[4] Prohibition of public meetings during period of forty-eight hours ending with hour fixed for conclusion of poll.
[5] Jinala Sanghvi, Role of social media in Indian politics, LEGAL DESIRE (Apr. 28, 2021, 9:36 PM), https://legaldesire.com/role-of-social-media-in-indian-politics/.
[6] Abhishek Singh, Democracy in times of social media, THE INDIAN EXPRESS (Apr. 25, 2021, 3:43 PM), https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/democracy-in-times-of-social-media-6910382/
[7] Richard A. Epstein, Direct Democracy: Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, 34 HARVARD LAW JOURNAL AND PUBLIC POLICY 819, (2011), https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2260&context=journal_articles.
[8] TWITTER, http://twitter.github.io/interactive/sotu2015/#p1, (last visited Apr. 26, 2021).
[9] Fenton & Barassi, Alternative media and social networking sites: The politics of individuation and political participation, 14(3) THE COMMUNICATION REVIEW 179-196, (2011).
[10] Ten times when Sushma Swaraj won the internet with her Twitter outreach as Foreign Minister, LIVE MINT (Apr. 29, 2021, 2:20 PM), https://www.livemint.com/news/india/ten-times-when-sushma-swaraj-won-the-internet-with-her-twitter-outreach-as-eam-1565121014539.html.
[11] How Social Media Accelerated Tunisia’s Revolution: An Inside View, HUFFPOST (Apr. 28, 2021, 2:10 PM), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-social-media-accelera_b_821497.
[12] Serajul I. Bhuiyan, Social media and its effectiveness in the political reform movement in Egypt, 1(1) MIDDLE EAST MEDIA EDUCATOR 14, (2011), https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=meme.
[13] Scott Shane & Vindu Goel, Fake Russian Facebook accounts bought $100,000 in Political ads’ THE NY TIMES (Apr. 27, 2021, 9:30 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/technology/facebook-russian-political-ads.html.
[14] Nicolas Confessore, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The scandal and the fallout so far, THE NY TIMES (Apr. 27, 2021, 9:36 PM), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html.
[15] The Information Technology Act, 2000, s. 69A.
[16] Pranav dixit, Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize how the Indian government has handled the pandemic, BUZZFEED NEWS (May 5, 2021, 11:13 AM), https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/twitter-blocking-tweets-india.