Emeka Ibemere
The most used phrase today by the Nigerian youths and the elites are “Social-
media”. The phrase is being tossed around a lot these days. And when anything
takes place, within a twinkling of an eye, it’s already on Facebook, twitter,
blogs, on-line publications and other forms of social media.
Today, however,
the fear of social
media such as
Saharareporters, Linda
Ikeji blog, Ukpakareports, 247reports, Nigerian Village Square, Elendureports and others has become the beginning
of wisdom to those on the corridors of power. No doubt, these new found interactive media
have played a major role in changing some ugly situations in Nigeria through
its instrumentality of information dissemination and the way they report issues
concerning those in government and private sectors.
The most casualties of this
instrument of communication have been Nigerian artists of the Nollywood
community, musicians, footballers, police and other security personnel. The President
and his wife, wives of the governors, and members of the National Assembly have
suffered immensely from the practitioners or owners of social media. Those who
go to Web for information are thrilled daily with the actions and inactions of
those in power.
The owners of social media have
become the new found oppressors using the tools of information to hunt down
erring officials of the government. For those in the corridors of power, social
media is breeching on their privacy.
If you think that the effectiveness
of social media is a child’s play, then ask the Senate President, David Mark.
The senate president couldn’t bear the heat recently when he called for the
censorship of the new form of instrument of information dissemination.
The Nigerian Senate President few months ago, after reviewing the activities
and effectiveness of social media, called for a check on the use of the social
media in the country, saying that people now use them to demean their leaders.
Senator Mark spoke in Umuahia, Abia State, while declaring open a two-day
retreat for Senate Press corps.
The senator said the need to check the social media became necessary, as
they do not have the avenue for retraction of whatever they have done. While
acknowledging that that the media has come to stay, as part of the process of
governance in the country, since the return of democratic government in 1999
and performing its social responsibility of checking the excesses of the
leaders, Senator Mark however, urged reporters to always cross check their
facts before writing so as not to mislead the people, who depend on them to
know what goes on around them. In proving his point, the Senate President cited
as examples varied figures usually quoted by various media in times of
tragedies, saying that the figures were always inconsistent.
Describing the media as one of the stabilizing factors in the scheme of
things, Mark cautioned that Nigerian social media users should learn how to
always say positive things about their country. “We need to change our attitude
on how we report things about our country, and we should emulate the foreign
reporters, who never report negative things about their countries,” David Mark
pleaded. A day after that call for censorship of the social media, Social media
activists went on air and started attacked the Senate President. Even some
called for his resignation for trying to muzzle the press. In a swift reaction,
his media aide quickly comes out with a denial saying that his boss was
misquoted out of context.
According to David Mark's Special Advisor, Kola Ologbondiyan who issued
statement under intense social media backlash denied that the senate President
called for the censorship of social media in Nigeria. He says
"mischief-makers" took his comments out of context. He said that his
boss said, “the emergence of the social media like Facebook, twitter,
blackberry messenger, YouTube etc have changed the face of the media practice
by making information sharing easier, faster and quicker. But this is not
without its demerits. Social media has become a threat to the ethics of media
practice and good governance because of its accessibility and absolute freedom.
Every freedom carries a responsibility. Even in the advanced democracies, where
we all agree that good governance is practiced, there is no absolute
freedom."
Continuing, Senator Mark expressed the belief that “there must be a measure
to check the negative tendencies of the social media in our country. I say this
because media practice, particularly journalism, process news gathering and dissemination.
It also operates a feedback mechanism and where the practitioners erred there
is room for rebuttal. But in the social media a faceless character can post any
information that is absolutely false and misleading but will never retract it.
At the end of the day one is bombarded with questions over what one has no
business with. I suggest that schools of mass communication and journalism
should review their curricular to include the operations of social media.”
“But hardly had he returned to his seat after the address when mischief makers
began to work on their blogs in the social media. The message of the President
of the Senate, delivered in a simple language, has not only been misconstrued,
it has become misrepresented and had begun to spread like a wildfire. Mark had
become the victim of the fear he had expressed before his address”.
In denying the said report, Ologbondiyan said the wildest among the
reactions said Senator Mark had called for censorship of the social media.
There were those who said the President of the Senate stated that social media
was being used to insult the leaders of the nation like him while others became
as mundane as alleging that he wanted the social media to stop criticizing
those in authority and to write only their good sides. All these are absolute
falsehood.
“From the excerpts of the speech quoted above, it is manifest that the
President of the Senate neither called for the censorship of the social media
nor alleged that the medium was being used to insult the Nigerian leaders like
him. He also did not ask the social media to stop criticizing the Federal
Government and write only on its good sides. Rather, he called for measures
that would check the negative tendencies inherent in the use of the social
media. That, I believe, is a genuine call that would help refocusing the medium”,
Ologbondiyan stated.
“One would therefore have expected on-line publishers to join the clarion
call made by Senator Mark that the assault to news gathering and dissemination
being perpetrated on the social media be checked. There are several instances
when social media activists have posted falsehood and readers believed them
only to discover later that the post was bogus. How does this help the
credibility of the social media as a medium? For instance, few days after
members of the National Youth Service Corp posted to Bauchi State went to camp,
a section of the social media posted falsehood that Boko Haram sect had
attacked the Bauchi camp and about 50 people killed”.
Ologbondiyan said it was soon discovered that the information was false and
totally mischievous. “How can this be justified? Yet Senator Mark did not call
for sanctions against those who made such posts but called for a check against
such negative tendencies. For the avoidance of doubts, the President of the
Senate’s interest in the media has never been hidden and he demonstrated this
in his several interfaces with the stakeholders of the industry before the
passage of the Freedom of Information Bill by the 6th National Assembly”.
Even as David Mark tried to give excuses, Nigerian still didn’t accept his
reasons. He was further attacked on the same social media. He was called so
many names.
Ordinarily, the Nigeria
Security and Civil Defense Corps’, Obafaiye Shem, the man who postulated, “My
oga at the top” mantra,
would
have retained his position as Commandant of the Lagos State Command of NSCDC,
if not for the effectiveness of the social media. He was
replaced by Mr. Adesuyi Clement from Oyo State Command. The Commandant General
of NSCDC, Dr. Olu Abolurin, ordered the removal of Shem when social media went
viral on internet and Ytube concerning an interview Shem granted Channels
Television. Shem’s ordeal started when he appeared on Channels Television
morning programme ‘Sunrise’ and when asked the NSCDC website he said: “Hmmm,
the website is, excuse me, my Oga at the top knows the website”. He again,
cleared his throat and said: “My Oga at the top is working on the website and I
don’t have them”. When the presenters insisted that he give a functioning
website address of the Para-military outfit, he dropped the bombshell:
“ww.nscdc, that’s all”.
Immediately, the interview went viral and has become so popular to the
extent that t-shirts with several “my oga at the top” insignia has been
produced and selling fast across the country. The rest they say is now history.
Sharing the same fate with Shem is a police officer,
police sergeant, Chris Omeleze.
Omeleze’s sin is everyday activities of the Nigerian Police. He too, would have
gone home without being sacked if not for the social media activists who went
viral on their different blogs, twitter, Facebook, and other on-line
publications. It was the end of the road for Omeleze, the police officer
caught on film soliciting for N25, 000 bribes from an unknown motorist. He was
dismissed by the Nigerian police force.
Deputy Force Public Relations Officer Mr Frank Mba confirmed the dismissal
of the officer, adding that contrary to Omeleze’s claim to have “oga at the
top” accomplices in the force, the phone call he made to make the motorist part
with his money was found to be false.
Mba added that the dismissal of Omeleze is in line with the new Nigerian
police zero tolerance for unethical and unprofessional conducts, warning that
the police force would not fail to weed out the bad eggs, while well behaved
officers would be appropriately rewarded. Until his dismissal Mr Omeleze had
served a total of twenty-one years in the Nigerian police force. But he falls
like a park cards. The police worked on the report of social media to sack
Omeleze. There are more Omelezes still calling for bribes at every police station
across Nigeria. There are more others who have fall victims of the social
media.
Miss. Osokogu was a 24-year-old post-graduate student of Nassarawa State
University and the only daughter of Major General Frank Osokogu (rtd). She met
one Nwabuzor Okwuoma, 33, who claimed to be a student of University of Lagos
(UNILAG) through Facebook and gradually a friendship ensued, albeit in
cyberspace since both of them were hundreds of miles apart. With time, Nwabuzo,
who hails from Anambra State, invited Miss. Osokogu to Lagos on a business trip
and reportedly paid for her flight ticket from Abuja to Lagos. But according to
the police, Nwabuzo took to Facebook with criminal intent. Alongside his
cousin, Ezekiel Odera, 23, an undergraduate of Anambra State University,
Nwabuzo allegedly booked a room in Casmillo Hotel, Festac, Lagos for Miss.
Osokogu, where the arrested duo prepared a chain, a cello tape, padlock and
other bondage items to use on their unsuspecting victim. The alleged plot,
according to the police, was to hold Miss. Osokogu hostage in that hotel room
in order to rape and rob her of her belongings. On July 22, Cynthia landed in
Lagos longing to meet her Facebook friend, Nwabuzo, in person for the first
time, totally oblivious of the tragic fate that awaited her. Nwabuzo allegedly
picked her up at the airport and drove the victim to the hotel where three
packets of Ribena juice allegedly laced with Rohypnol have been placed in the
booked room's refrigerator. Rohypnol, a sedative drug used in the short-term
treatment of insomnia and for pre-medication purposes in surgical procedures,
is also known as "the date rape drug." The next day social media went
wired and the suspects were arrested. The next is now history. Many issues like
this have been shaped by the social media in the recent time making the forum,
a strong means of change.
How important were Twitter, Facebook and other social media in toppling
regimes in the Arab Spring uprisings? In these countries, a fierce debate in
academic circles is going on concerning the role played by social media and new
technology made a key difference in successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt
and helped foster grassroots movements in other Arab nations.
The book by Philip Howard and colleagues concludes that digital media was
"consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary
conditions" for the Arab Spring movements.
"There was a longstanding democracy movement in these countries that
for many years tried many tactics but none of them worked," Howard said.
He maintained that new media made a difference because it "has so
fundamentally changed the way people think about their options."
The Arab Spring movements "involved a networked public of generally
younger folks," which was "structurally different" than prior
movements headed by a charismatic leader, Howard said.
Howard, a University of Washington communications professor who is visiting
at Princeton, said authoritarian regimes had been accustomed to controls on
traditional media but were unable to keep up with the rapid pace of Twitter and
Facebook organizing at that time.
"Democracy's Fourth Wave? Digital Media and the Arab Spring,"
written with Muzammil Hussain, counters the conclusions of other academics who
found that the impact of social media were exaggerated in the West.
Earlier research led by Sean Aday of George Washington University concluded
that new media "did not appear to play a significant role in either
in-country collective action or regional diffusion" during the 2011
uprisings.
"This lack of impact does not mean that social media or digital media
generally were unimportant," they said in a report for the US Institute of
Peace last year.
"But it does mean that at least in terms of media... (especially
Twitter), data do not provide strong support for claims of significant new
media impact on Arab Spring political protests."
The 2012 study said the tweets and Facebook posts probably did more to
spread information outside the affected countries and could have led to "a
boomerang effect that brought international pressure to bear on autocratic
regimes."
And a study by Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina and
Christopher Wilson of the United Nations Development Program supported that
notion.
"Social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new
sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in
shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests,
the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success," they wrote in
the Journal of Communication.
Some researchers point out that social media's power appeared to be limited
to organizing protests and failed to help those people create a stable
government after the uprisings.
"It is a bit of a game," Howard said. "Democracy activists
used digital media to catch dictators off guard, but we're now in a situation
in the 'late spring' countries where the regimes figured out some of the
tricks."
He added that "the Facebook and Twitter story may be over because
authoritarian regimes have learned how to use these for control" but that
it would be a mistake of give up on social media.
"There is always some new tool, because there are democracy activists
who are desperate," Howard said. "I don't know what it's going to be,
but I think there will be some predictable surprises." With a population
of nearly 160 million, Nigeria is one of Africa’s giants when it comes to the
use of social media. Reports say nearly 4.6 million Nigerians are on Facebook.
Twitter is the 6th most popular website in Nigeria. So it comes as no surprise
that David Mark was angered by the way social media in the country go awash
each time issues concerning those in government are reported. “David Mark is
afraid of social media like dictators in the Arab world that was why he called
for its censorship”, Christopher Akaji, student said. Saharareporters went to
town to seek the response of Nigerians on David Mark’s comment and their
responses to David Mark’s comments about censoring social media were rejected. But
what is social media?
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopaedia,
Social media refers to the
means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange
information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Andreas
Kaplan and Michael Haenlein
define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build
on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the
creation and exchange of user- generated content.
Furthermore, social media depends
on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms
through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify
user-generated content. It introduces substantial and pervasive changes to
communication between organizations, communities, and individuals.
Social media differentiates from
traditional/industrial media in many aspects such as quality, reach, frequency,
usability, immediacy, and permanence. There are many effects that stem from
internet usage. Much of the criticism of
social media are about its exclusiveness as most sites do not allow
the transfer of information from one to another, disparity of information
available, issues with trustworthiness and reliability of information
presented, concentration, ownership of media content, and the meaning of
interactions created by social media. However, it is also argued that social
media has positive effects such as allowing the democratization of the internet
while also allowing individuals to advertise themselves and form friendships. Most
people associate social media with positive outcomes yet
this is not always the case. Due to the increase in social media websites,
there seems to be a positive correlation between the usage of such media with
cyber bullying, online sexual predators, and the decrease in face-to-face
interactions. Social media may expose children to images of alcohol, tobacco
and sexual behaviors Geocities, created in 1994, was one of the first social
media sites. The concept was for users to create their own websites,
characterized by one of six "cities" that were known for certain
characteristics. According to reports, social media has been
available in the last 30 years and therefore isn’t really a new thing. Recently,
it has become part of mainstream culture and the business world; people have
been using digital media for networking, socializing and information gathering.
Historically,
the first social networking website was SixDegrees which let people make
profiles and connect with friends in 1997. This kind of interactive, social web
application style became popularly known as “Web 2.0” and it really
gained momentum with Friendster around (2002) and followed by MySpace (2004 –
2006) and then Facebook (2007). Digg gives people a constant,
community-filtered stream of potent & engaging content. Slashdot got famous
for generating tons of traffic and buzz around its editor-picked stories, but
the modern social news revolution took off when Digg gained critical mass in
late 2006 and sites like StumbleUpon and Reddit followed. Delicious became
popular as a way to share bookmarks of static pages. With the iPhone and Black
Berry revolution which allow people to use their mobile devices to “check in”
at public locations and be seen by other network members who are physically
close by, and let people to transcend the awkward social taboos against
interacting with strangers in public places, social media interactions becomes
more interesting.
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