Misuse of social media disturbing and should be keenly monitored

That social media has completely revolutionised our personal lives, our social interactions, our politics and our economies requires no elaboration. The impact of social media on our lives and on society can be gleaned from various perspectives. At only 15 years, Facebook has a membership of over 2.5 billion users.

Twitter, at 13, boasts of over 120 million members. In terms of revenue, Facebook grossed 55.8 billion dollars in 2018 making it one of the most profitable companies globally. How effective these global techie giants have become is best evidenced by US President Donald Trump who literally runs his presidency through Twitter, bypassing traditional media by speaking directly to his 67 million followers through his account. When the US marines killed ISIS leader Al Baghdadi, Americans were first made aware of the “big event” through Trump’s personal Twitter account.

Virtually every global leader makes their major communications through Twitter. In Kenya, the President publicly announced his exit from social media so it would not raise awkward questions. His deputy on the other hand has energised his social media account to an unrecognisable mode. The effect of social media in global politics is so pervasive that it is believed that Facebook had a direct impact on the 2016 US elections, causing major upsets including, many believe, the surprising election of Trump.

The angst against Facebook has been so intense that Facebook chief Mack Zuckerberg has appeared before the US Congress several times to answer questions on how the company will manage fake news and reduce its negative impact on American democracy. With such ubiquitous power comes pervasive responsibility. That has not been evident; many social media owners appear more concerned about earning their billions than being responsible global citizens. 

The most evident blot of social media is obviously fake news, through which numerous made-up stories are posted and reposted mostly to achieve nefarious ends. In this way, social media has been used to infect toxins in political debate, fundamentally poisoning the democratic process. Less well discussed but yet having painful effects on individuals is the increasing number of parody accounts targeting persons of influence especially on Facebook and Twitter. It is believed that almost million fake accounts are opened each day and used to transmit fake information purporting to be from such persons of influence. This includes political and business leaders and others who command significant following. These fake accounts are regularly used to transmit messages intended to injure one’s standing and reputation.

The standard method is to publish offending statements that would not normally emanate from the concerned person purporting them to be the products of the person. The consuming public on social media platforms glibly assume these averments to be by the person and immediately form opinions which, on many occasions, they then transmit as truth.

This information will have pervaded the social media platforms long before the culprit is even aware. In other circumstances, these accounts are used by scammers to solicit funds from an easily gullible public. The scam will usually offer either job or income opportunities against the payment of a nominal fee to some identified number. Whilst Facebook and Twitter generally suspend such accounts upon reporting, by then it’s too late, tremendous damage has been done. The only way to eradicate this scourge is to prevent the opening of such duplicate accounts completely; a solution which social media companies have not been as vigorous in implementing. A tweak of their algorithms should make this easily possible, especially in cases where they have already deleted several fake accounts from a specific individual. That they are willing to sit back and let their platforms be misused to this level is the height of irresponsibility and must be sanctioned, either through court action or changes in the law.

- The writer is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya