Dear Sir,
OUR youths account for more than 50 per cent of the voting population in Guyana. Given their familiarity and use of new media, it is not surprising that social media platforms are already playing an indispensably crucial role in political campaigns for upcoming general and regional elections in Guyana; I would say even more than traditional media– newspapers, radio and television– with their high costs, gate-keeping roles and editorial agendas and policies.

Again, unlike traditional news sources, social media provide very little in the way of individual accountability or fact-checking mechanisms; appealability and repeatability rather than truthfulness can function as the primary forces of information diffusion. Indeed, truth is the first casualty of social media.

Nevertheless, it is true that social networking and microblogging services reach hundreds of millions, even billions, of users and have become rich mines for research and political participation and communication. Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, Instagram and Tumblr are among those used for such purposes. But in a “post-truth world,” where astroturf seems to be the order of the day, how can anyone trust information on social media platforms. One only has to look at certain past and recent events and incidents in certain western liberal democracies to see the strained relationship between social media and veracity. Perhaps, a good one for us to consider is Facebook; at the moment, it is the biggest social media site in the world.

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee over planned crypto currency, (Libra Currency) in particular, and other related policies, in general. That was not the first time (and I am sure would not be the last) that the co-founder of Facebook has testified before such panels. Both the process ( protocols, systems and elaboration for public awareness, communication and information) and substance ( broad outlines of approaches, and standard operational procedures to manage the peculiar tensions between continuous innovation for global cyber leadership and the protection of data, and databases from state and non-state actors) those hearings, of course, elevated the massive importance of this media platform and accompanying tools not only to America, but to the world.

Incredibly, over 2. 7 billion people — nearly a 1/3 of the world ‘s population– uses Facebook. This is an interesting point because this gives this single media platform beyond epic powers to influence global and national conversations on anything and everything in human society. It has the capacity to shape the views, reactions, and participation of entire nations in things global, and determine, manipulate and manage the outcomes of different life-changing events and activities, including elections, for individuals as well as whole communities.

This was amply demonstrated by the political organising power of Barrack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign to Howard Dean’s failed campaign and scream in 2004. The latter showed an inability to translate internet excitement and promotion into real tangible political support, while the former knew how to make virtual the reality in terms of votes.
Again, the Mueller report was very clear on Russia’s interference in U.S. elections in 2016. Advertisements and hundreds of false Facebook accounts created by Russian specialists. It is said that contents produced by these accounts (false information and disinformation) on Facebook was shared more that 300 million times to more than 10 million users.
These are just a few examples of the seismic energy of Facebook that continue to vibrate throughout this world.

Whilst its use continues to gain increasing popularity, the utility of this platform is further enhanced by the fact that traditional media pay enormous attention to the flow of communication it supports. It has infinite potential to reach ever-increasing audiences of various geographic, cultural, social, educational, economic, political and religious backgrounds. But with its increasing popularity we are seeing more people using this platform to discuss matters of public interest as it offers unprecedented opportunities for public participation and information awareness among the Internet-connected public. Volumes have been written (and there are huge ongoing research projects) by different scholars about how social media platforms democratise the political process because it allows one of the main pillars of democracy- free speech. But does it? This is a very tricky issue. The emergence and advancement of this technology are outpacing governments’ ability to put in place appropriate laws and regulations to effectively govern and manage them. This by itself disrupts democracy. In any case, free speech works only when we know who is speaking.

However, the increasing acclimation of Facebook presents a negative side; people find ways to abuse it. One such type of abuse is political astroturf– political campaigns presented as spontaneous grassroots behaviour that are in reality carried out by a single person or organisation. This is part of our “post-truth world.” The goal of these communication strategies is to promote or suppress political information through lies, alternative truths and confusion. Those who use it create false consensus and the illusion of popularity or disapproval. They create a “merry caravan effect” and the more people play into it, the more difficult it becomes to stop.

Perhaps, this is the reason why in Guyana some political parties and individuals who appear very popular and celebrated online perform extremely poorly on the ground in local communities. Instead of real grassroots politics they are involved in astroturf. In reality they have no following or constituency. This has far-reaching implications, not only for the parties involved, but also for citizens. One such implication is the issue of trust.
Once those organisations are found out or discovered, they then lose the trust of the public with further consequential decline of their organisation or political party and poor prospect of being successful in their efforts to secure national political leadership. But a more morally wrong outcome is that those, who are involved in this abuse prevent citizens from making the best possible choices for their families, communities and the country through deceit, lies and false information and disinformation. In the end, this stunts national development and prosperity. As I visit Facebook and other sites, it is abundantly clear that these platforms are being used, by some, for dark political purposes. And when you add to this the fact that different international and local public relations corporations are planning and executing an assortment of strategies for different political parties, the situation becomes much more worrying.

It is my view that to reduce the incidence of such abuse of social media, the competent authorities must provide strong leadership in this area. They must entertain no fear about designing and implementing appropriate systems to identify and track those accounts set up for the purpose of astroturfing. Standard protocols with specific indicators should be introduced for the use of social media sites for political advertising and communications. And of course, there should be sanctions and rewards for compliance and non-compliance.
Above all, citizens should be encouraged to do critical thinking when reading content on social media. In this process they can ask questions, such as, what is the source of the information? How factual is it? What is the likely motive of its dissemination on the site? All this must be supported by a strong and aggressive education and awareness programme to assist all of our citizens, particularly our young people, to sort out accurate information on candidates, their leadership, visions and plans for our great nation for the next five years. This would make the difference in how they elect the next President of the Cooperation Republic of Guyana in upcoming polls in March 2020.

Regards
Royston King