A Government Vs Social Media
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One of the biggest influencers of attitude is the social media, it's so powerful that people are keyed into it. It's ability to influence on a massive scale is rather unbelievable, and this is why a lot of country's government are always wary of the power of social media on their citizens.
Back in the days, it was easy to sell an idea, a prospect or a shill a government policy to the public this was because, most of the traditional mass media was controllable by the government. In fact, inasmuch as the mass media organizations had power in the past, it had its limits to how much it could write or speak as they could be sanctioned. Truth is, media houses are firstly business organizations before agents of free speech.
This was why it was easy to put a hold or sanction the operations of the mass media; they are centralized, have a body, and a goal, visible, they have an origination and was patented by the government before they can operate. The truth is, this differs with social media, where the level of free speech isn't measured by a degree.
Why the traditional centralized social media is more powerful than the mass media is that. People are interconnected, it's like a small village where people interact through their profiles. People could decide to use pseud-anonymous entities, while passing across a lot of information that could be totally true or untrue.
Unlike the mass media, where things that are aired or written goes through a process of formatting and editing and verified. Truth is, authentic information is gotten in the mass media while the most shocking information are gotten on social media, while they each have a role to play, I believe the only way that social media in the future wouldn't end up getting banned in many countries is if it eventually ends up totally decentralized.
The Nigeria government could ban twitter from its space because Twitter is a recognizable entitle owned by a person. A decentralized social media would not be banned because it will have no authentic entity. The reasons why people need social media is because it helps people to tell or predict or know events in its raw form without editing and cutting off information.
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Most African country's government are very secretive, and they're hardly accountable, they want to keep their affairs away from the public or filter the information that's been passed down to the public, with mass media, they can do this, with social media they cannot because of the chain of network.
Truth is, rumor sells more than the truth, sometimes when the government tries to quell or quash a particular news making the rounds about them on social media, what they do is to bend the truth, rather than coming out straight, being transparent and totally accountable. Government tries to feed people with adulterated information and this is why people would rather choose social media.
There's always some percentage of truth to any rumor about government, especially when they try to silence it. People want to buy into rumors because they're being told not to, the instinct is to do what is deemed incorrect because the feedback is what would matter.
Social media might completely be banned in most countries in the future because of how it influences people's action and attitude towards their government and this is because most government would choose not to be totally transparent hence they'll rather ban the main source. This might be an outlook to social media and government in the future. But then it's all variables and a lot of things can still change.
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That's very true friend. Its the harsh reality we are facing around the globe. The Indian government also taking strict action against twitter and Facebook. Freedom of speech is remained only in the books but ground reality is very different. No government is ready to bear criticism specially on social media.
But then, criticism is an Important aspect of democracy because its a system that should function on check and balance, its the feature.
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Must of the government can no longer do things in secret due to the fear of the social media exposing them..forgotten the fat that the social media as also help them in so many ways...The government want a situation were citizen will be denied of their freedom
You're absolutely right, in reality these medias helps the government in many ways but because they want go silence people, it becomes their number one aim
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I didn't expect the whole Twitter ban to last this long and this raises a red flag. It shows that government wields more power than many people can imagine.
We can't completely trust media houses. Most of them are owned by these government officials so, transparency will always be overlooked as far as it threatens their position. As for social media, news flies around there. Some are facts, others are cooked up but there is never a smoke without fire.
The government/social media drama is the type that will last for a very long time.
Well the truth is, I didn't expect the twitter ban to last that long either I thought it was something that could end with agitations from people but then it only proves that the government do not put the plight of people in consideration.
It's the new positions we find ourselves, I only pity People who build their businesses on places like facebook because the government might come facebook too.
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You are correct, social media's influence in a massive scale is just unbelievable. Just look at some of the paat elections all over the world, social media played a big role in dictating the outcome of those elections.
Yeah, you're right about this. Although social media is getting powerful. I feel it can be regulated not controlled or banned because it represents free speech.
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The Nigerian government has been trying their possible best to camp the social media just like they have successfully done to the mass media, by asking everyone to register their SIM cards some years back, but it seemed that wasn’t enough after the #endsars protest, these is why they brought the idea of registering one’s NIN with one’s SIM card, who knows what else they will ask us to register with our SIM cards, all in the name of trying to know who passes information about them and the person’s location.
In the case of mass media, it was easily controlled because they are most times the employer of labor, I can’t pay your salary to bring out my secrets.
Let’s see how the battle between social media and the government goes in the next 3 to 5 years.
By the way it’s nice to see that you have changed the intro. picture for your posts. Keep being fresh @josediccus
Lovely comment my friend. You're right these endless registrations its all about control, the endless mind games and the crazy ways to put the citizens in check. We do not need this, the government is meant to rule and of course rule by making lives better for the citizens.
As for me, I think that battle is sure to continue for a long period of time and obviously they'll keep winning unless better innovative people comes to power and change everything
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Actually I think governments would try to enforce state owned social media. If they can control what comes onto the platform then they are in control. Of course I don't believe it will succeed and decentralized social media will win out in the end.
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Nigeria don't even have the firepower or even the means to build a social media so what they'll do is that ban the once in their internet space and ask people to deal with it. Its how worse it has gotten.
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Well said bro the govt now believe the social media exposes most of their hidden agenda that's why they are planning to eradicate it
It does expose most of their hidden agenda, their policies and even their incompetence, hence they just want to shut people out from this.
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Yeah bcos that's the way most youth and every other person can communicate so easily and information is vastly spread there