While waiting for a connecting flight to Calgary, Alberta, Canada at the Minneapolis airport, my attention was caught by the breaking news being broadcast at the large airport monitor. A group of people had gathered in front of the monitor, animated in discussion as they took in the news about the death of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
The news report stated that the American ambassador and four of his colleagues were killed in what was apparently a revenge killing. Prior to the killing, Muslims everywhere had staged riots and caused civil disorder in protest over a film shown on YouTube that they considered a blasphemous depiction of the prophet Mohammed. The film was made by a person using an alias, but it was promoted using social media.
As a practitioner and avid follower of social media, I reflected on how social media is increasingly being used to bring to fore what previously would have been hidden from public view. In the Philippines the celebrated case of the motorist who berated and assaulted a traffic enforcer, unaware that his actions were being recorded, comes to mind. There are other cases ‑ an altercation at the airport involving an actress and her actor-husband versus a well-known hard-hitting columnist and more recently a man caught on CCTV assaulting a restaurant cashier because she made the mistake of asking him to pay his food bill. The incidents caused an explosion of angry opinions over Facebook and Twitter. In the first case, the furor led to the appropriate agencies revoking the motorist’s driving license, and pursuing a legal case against him. The second case is pending in the courts. It remains to be seen what legal action awaits the angry restaurant customer. In all these cases, social networkers have become both judge and jury, swaying public opinion against the perceived offenders.
Social media has indeed come a long way. With the fast-paced march of technology, we can connect with people at the speed of light, literally! Social media sites have sprouted up in the last decade like never before. We have Facebook, Twitter and the like. News and opinions, whether true or not, are easily broadcast, and these include gossip, rumor and blind items thrown out into cyberspace for people to read, digest and “share.”
All this freedom of expression is great but as with all freedoms, it comes with tremendous responsibility. If broadcast journalism is required to practice “responsible journalism,” shouldn’t social media have its own code of conduct or ethics? We do not need the government to enforce a cyber crime law to force us to be responsible. Social media must police itself.
When people perceive a threat to themselves, their groups or their communities, their first line of defense these days is through social media. That is fine. But oftentimes, social media is used not to defend one’s self but to attack others. There is safety in anonymity, since you don’t have to use your own personality so being offensive becomes easy. Already, there have been cases where the wrong or deliberately malicious information thrown into cyberspace have damaged the reputations of people. As in war, it is easy to be a sniper and kill somebody from a long distance since the target is not aware of the sniper’s presence until the last minute. This is the same case with social media offensives. Retractions and apologies may be aired after the fact but no matter, the damage has been done and reputations tarnished. The emotional wounds and psychological damage caused are very difficult to heal.
As technology continues to make socializing more anonymous and widespread, our hope is that social media will practice more responsibility. This will make this method of communication a bridge to reach out and be a source of encouragement rather than a weapon of destruction. Social media will continue to stay and to move on, but it has to realize that it can be a force for great good. It has to acknowledge that it has a tremendous responsibility to contribute to positive change for the betterment of all.
(Emmanuel “Manny” Garcia is a member of the Couples for Christ International Council.)