We are in a digital world and an era where lots of things now pass through social media, including politics. Social media is that one tool that has influenced politics so much in my country, with both the positive and the negative sides.
The first influence is awareness. With social media, visibility is possible; somebody will be in Lagos, and the next person in Maiduguri is seeing the person and his or her manifesto, just like campaigning from anywhere in the world or within the political territory of that person. So it gives that visibility; the awareness it creates is effortlessly unlike the way we have had it in the past. Although it doesn't stop politicians from moving from place to place physically for their campaigns, it augments that effort. With social media, it goes everywhere at the click of a button.
So politically, social media has impacted and affected the political environment very positively. It doesn't keep people in the dark about voting for people they want to vote for. People can even ask questions that ordinarily they might not be able to if there's a manifesto. But now, there's Twitter Space, where everyone can join the space and ask politicians questions, unlike before, when we didn't have such an opportunity. You see, there are lots of positive influences politically that social media has brought.
Secondly, it helps to get to some particular demography. Now the aged, let's say the senior citizens, most of them might not be tech-savvy and might not be online; they might not be captured by the social media influence, but it captures the younger generations, which invariably have the highest number in terms of population. This is also an advantage because they are the people that make the changes; they are the heartbeat of the nation.
Now, about fact-checking, this is where it can be on the negative side for the politicians. Let me take our druggie president for an example; without the Internet, most of us don't even know the past of our current president. We don't even know that he was once a drug dealer, so it influences him negatively because even if he has changed, even if he does something by mistake or whatever, everything will come to light, the moment you declare that you want to run for a position. So it brings out the past, whether it's ugly or not; it brings it out. If it's something good, it will help him for the masses to know that he has achieved this or that in the past, but if it's something bad, like our president's case, it will still bring it out and should affect him, but it happened the way they wanted it during his own time of running for presidency.
Also, it's very easy for you to dish out your manifesto and show your past achievements, your abilities, and your qualifications. This info is easier to showcase on social media, and it goes viral, which we have seen in the recent past, unlike the way we were doing it manually and so analog in the past, going places to speak, and people forget. Now people cannot forget because things are now listed online; everything is there. People can just search your name, and with a click, everything you have done in the past will appear, and people can easily make their choices based on what they see you do or how good your manifestos are if they capture the desires of the people.
For the electorate, it gives them options of whom they want to vote for. Recently, there's this fast check; you can't just come and tell lies to the people; they will fast check you and know whether all you said is actually true. So social media has made it possible in this regard, and deceiving the people wouldn't be like before, where the politicians make bogus promises.
Having said that, there's always room for improvement, but in this case, I will say censorship. The same way we can fact-check and use this tool to do good, they can use this same tool to do bad. We have seen it a lot where they fabricate lies and make it go viral, and gradually we start believing the lies. It's called propaganda. They pick up a candidate and Photoshop or even use AI to do something and post it on social media, and then it goes viral. Then, doubting the person becomes easier. So censorship is very important so that the real essence will be achieved; otherwise, it turns into a weapon against your enemies, and it's difficult for you to actually defend yourself in that manner because the same way it goes viral for good, it goes viral for negative too, and people believe what they want to believe. It can easily tarnish the image of the people, especially the innocent ones.
This is one part I will love to see addressed. If there's a way every post should pass through a censored channel before it is posted, it becomes better. Just being so strict about censorship and knowing what to post, make sure that whatever you are posting is the truth and you have your source; you place it there because you can't just hide under your iPad and start destroying people. If given the opportunity, this is the part I would love to bring up a change to.
This post is in response to the #HiveLearners community contest on the topic titled, Social Media and Politics.
Images were taken from canva
Posted Using INLEO
Hmmm, can censorship be made possible in a country like ours where dog eats dog?
Hahaha 🤣🤣🤣
My belly oo 🤣🤣🤣
😂😂😂😂
You made some really good points. Social media has definitely made politics more open and accessible, especially for young people. But like you said, it also has its negative side misinformation and propaganda spread so fast. I agree that there should be some form of control, but we also have to be careful so it doesn’t silence the truth. Balance is key.
Balance is the key indeed, but finding the balance too is a chore especially for our type of country.
Thanks for engaging 🥰
I also think that social media can bring many positive impact in terms of politics and we already witnessed the proof of it in many cases but the bad thing is that in present the government also monitor what we say and they can restrict us indirectly if we say something against the government.
!PIZZA
The restrictions is there but at least they are still hearing our voices through many medium no.matter how much they don't want to hear the truth
I think it's still better than before
The fact is what you have made mentioned of. Awareness is the paramount when it comes to the aspect of social media and politics. Most people can get aware of what's going on when it comes to campaigning.
The masses are wise and would rather vote for who they like than who they do not. Although rigging has been the order of the day.
There's always rigging making it difficult for us to have our choice leaders
And what's next?
We keep hoping that our voices will be heard , and probably bring in positive changes
🙏
100 % agree with you, there are benefits as well as dis-benefits when it comes to social media influence. it should be used positively, not to spread miss-information and propaganda.
Exactly 💯..only if we utilize it well...we will enjoy what it has to offer in politics as well
I don't think posts can ever be thoroughly censored, because these platforms want to make money. So as long as it drives traffic, algorithms will always promote it. What we need is more wisdom. People have to know better than to believe everything they read online. They should learn to fact check and also give things critical thinking. Until then, it won't matter what gets censored and what doesn't. We're cooked!
The major work lies on us as citizens and it starts from our minds. That is, if we are really ready to sieve online infos and know what to believe even without censorship being possible
Agree with you, and social media has a big influence on any country's politics, and we have seen lots of incidents when riots broke out due to fake news spread on social media
Exactly..fake news is very common and it goes viral so easily
It's one of the downsides too
Thanks for engaging ♥️
Congratulations @nkemakonam89! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 38000 comments.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPThanks for the update buzzy 🥰
Discord Server.This post has been manually curated by @bhattg from Indiaunited community. Join us on our
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @bhattg by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited.
Thanks so much for the curation @bhattg
Thanks for the curation
Thanks for the curation ❤️
!LADY
View or trade
LOHtokens.Use !LADY command to share LOH! More details available in this post.@hive-124452, you successfully shared 0.1000 LOH with @nkemakonam89 and you earned 0.1000 LOH as tips. (42/50 calls)
$PIZZA slices delivered:
(1/5) @intishar tipped @nkemakonam89
Come get MOONed!