Social media: change agents or whistle -blower

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.