The dawn of the 21st century has seen an unprecedented increase in the use of various social media platforms by people to voice their beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and opinions.
Depending on how responsibly this power is handled, social media’s expanding strength brings both opportunities and problems.
If you consider where responsibly, social media can be a blessing for society. For instance, it can be used to enhance accountability by calling upon the leader and policymakers to be accountable for their actions. In an era where human rights violations are still taking place, social media applications provide a platform for human rights activists to speak up against such grave human rights violations. Moving on, these digital platforms could be used to ignite social and political revolutions as well. So, it won’t be wrong to state that the power of social media can be leveraged to strengthen the democratic culture. On the economic front, social media marketing has resulted in enhanced business efficacy.
However, if this power of social media is abused, it can wreak havoc on society. Terrorist outfits have digital platforms to spread hate literature and extremists ideologies. Social Media also shoulders the blame for compromising people’s fundamental rights to privacy as witnessed in the Cambridge Analytical case. The publicity on social media of certain televisions shows and games that have a negative impact on the youth has also surfaced as a major problem. Lastly, it is a pity that social media is used by certain elements as defamation tools.
Hence, there is a dire need to regulate the use of social media to realize the long-term prosperity of society.
“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media: the question is how well we do it” — Eric Qualman.