Social Media

 A tool of Governance or Opinion Maker?

India - where a large chunk of people is stick to the Social Media. Greatest tool of 21st century is not only restricted to Marketing Companies to woo its potential customers but also a great engine of Governance for various Governments in the world.

Regardless of the fact whether the Government or Regime is Totalitarian or Democratic in nature, every head of state is on some or the other Social Media portal and using it to communicate their vision and mission for the people of that very nation.

We have seen a remarkable use of Social Media in India as an e-Governance tool post-2014 when National Democratic Alliance Government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into power. Main agenda of NDA's election manifesto was to bring Transparency into the system, as India was suffering from lack of transparency since 10 years.

Initially, it was the Ministry of Railways that commenced a spectacular use of Social Media when they started redressing grievance through Twitter and Facebook flawlessly. Soon after that Ministry of Finance actively took people's suggestions on huge indirect taxation overhaul - Goods and Services Tax (GST) through Twitter and Facebook itself and as such now almost every ministry of Central Government as well as the State Governments are now on Social Media not only for announcing new policies but also for grievance redressal mechanism.

As the use of Social Media grew among common citizen of the country we often noticed a propaganda driven use of it too. Some campaigns were for common good of the citizens and some of them were malafide in nature, but in both the cases these agendas or campaigns changed the nature of Social Media as governance tool to the opinion generator or opinion maker. Earlier you used to perform Rallies, public meetings etc. to propagate your intent to others and change their opinion in your way but now you can do all that and much more with one Tweet, one Insta story, one Facebook post while sitting at your home on a comfy chair and sipping freshly brewed coffee.

Recently, we heard news about Cambridge Analytica and how they influenced elections in the United States of America and how they intended to do so further in the upcoming elections of India, Sri Lanka and other countries too. When a news channel exposed the Modus Operandi of Cambridge Analytica, the very heart of the influencing campaign was the data which was harvested from the social media engine Facebook. Every App or Social Media Website have the data of its users from its Location, Gender, Age to its preferences, likes and dislikes.

Once you acquire this kind of data, you can easily design your campaign accordingly to the people's respective characteristics. If you follow someone and someone's policy on social media, they will design strategy and flood you with the information against that person along with the daily dosage of positive information about their client. This can be well quoted as Modern Day Brain-Washing and against the very basic ethics of Social Media.

Now, we are at a point where every political party whether it is The Treasury Bench or Opposition Bench design these kind of campaigns and play with the minds of end-user for their own ultimate benefit. And, the most terrifying thing is people in India often get stuck in this web of mis-information and lose their own discretion.

As a need in contemporary world we need to understand that every information displayed on Social Media is not accurate and can be trusted blindly, we should decide or make opinions about the things after getting in-depth knowledge about that. Also, the government of the day should take stringent action against the false/fake news spread manipulating the people's mind in wrong direction - may be an enactment of act by Parliament can help in achieving the same.