From 2004 to 2006, when social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, began their existence one after another, no one had thought that the media would attain a position strong enough to offer an alternative platform to electronic media.
The passing of the 18th Constitutional Amendment to the Constitution in 2010 was abhorred by non-democratic characters. Resultantly, they planned to introduce an alternative political platform to undo the amendment. The fact that around 60 percent of the population was the youth afforded a cogent idea to the characters to influence the country’s trajectory and achieve their target. With its amenable benefits, the youth was available as a target population.
In 2014, the project ‘Alternative Politics’ registered its birth. Social media was deployed to target the youth to claim their share in politics. Spreading disinformation and venting propaganda were used as the main tools to mobilize the youth. Both features were borrowed from the hybrid warfare concept. Nevertheless, the non-democratic characters midwived the project which saw daylight in July 2018. Both before and after the general elections, wealth bridged the gaps to transform a hodgepodge into a political party.
Whereas 2022 witnessed the drop scene of the project ‘alternative politics’, 2023 has so far seen the inversion and implosion of the project in the face of those who launched it and those who were its beneficiaries. Now, the same social media is enthralled with audio leaks of dissolute dialogues and video leaks of debauched dances. Together, both audio and video leaks have wallowed the project of ‘alternative politics’, whether or not it was in the name of making a new State of Madina (Riyasat-e Madina). With that, the desire to fight the fifth-generation hybrid war – the non-kinetic military manoeuvres– through the facility of the youth is also approaching a dead end.
Within the context of the fifth-generation hybrid war, it is not known how many cyber-attacks the defenders have repulsed; however, it is known that, supported by artificial intelligence, the tools of disinformation and propaganda have impaired Pakistan’s society more than Pakistan’s enemy. Social engineering has nonplussed the mind of the youth, which have turned their guns on their sponsors in retribution for deceiving. Tit for tat! In Urdu, it is called Tamasha Lagna: an entertainment show is going on. See for yourself the obscured faces of piety.
One consequence of the tamasha might be a law to bring social media under stern regulation, or simply ban social media. That is, to sweep realities under the carpet. It also means that the coming days would be full of a war of attrition between the ashamed and the shamers. In an effort to subdue the other, both would attack the stronghold of the other.
People, who admire social media for being an alternative platform to electronic media to seek and spread truth, must get ready for defending this demand or need of theirs to the hilt. They may not be supported much by electronic media which views social media as its (financial) competitor. If society values truth, it must speak for the existence of a powerful social media, and not an attenuated, subjugated one.
Run by a renowned journalist Ahmad Noorani, the website Fact Focus– an attempt to offer factual, data-driven investigative stories to empower Pakistani citizens– has made its mark. Noorani has given a new (but real) meaning to the power of social media. That is, instead of misleading people by disinformation and propaganda, provide them with information supported by facts (both rolled into one, called truth). This is what the real service of society is and this is what is required to be done by a journalist. Otherwise joining one camp to tout its message to earn money has tarnished the image of both journalism and commentary. Whereas journalists such as Matiullah Jan, Umar Cheema and Azaz Syed have developed a strong verbal communication power, Noorani has come up with the strength of displaying power. Noorani writes on his website and displays all relevant facts.
Proponents of the hybrid war must learn valour from this kind of journalist, who is respected in society more than those journalists who have earned millions in the name of serving the cause of ‘alternative politics’. Noorani has denounced the path which blends power with wealth, whether or not wealth is earned by legitimate means. When the defenders of Pakistan’s ideological boundaries get busy in amassing wealth, the task is consigned to the warriors of the hybrid war, which has consumed millions of the taxpayers’ money in songs and dances, the tabla-and-thumka duo. Lately, social media has also revealed that, in an effort to project Pakistan’s soft image, the soft image of many characters has gotten loosened. Certainly, power corrupts. Wealth corrupts. Together, both corrupt absolutely.
In the service of the state, one’s amassing wealth in billions in no small feat. Nevertheless, it is known that the lessons of uprightness, decency, and fair-play are meant for the downtrodden, the masses, who should keep on paying taxes to shore up the suprastructure banking on the omnipotence of tabla-and-thumka for its existence.
The other day, Cheema narrated the story of how he was picked up in September 2010 and tortured in an effort to intimidate him. He spent six hours in the captivity of masked men, who advised him to stop criticizing the government in his news feed to an English-language daily. He was told that, in case of disobedience, he would face consequences worse than this time. Certainly, the abduction by the state machinery was an attempt to hush up a voice of truth. Such attempts of abduction are contemptuous. The faces behind such attempts are the villains that the state is harbouring. Their acts are crimes against society and the state. They need to be brought to justice.
Social media’s power to deconstruct a false narrative and supplant it with facts is both praiseworthy and worrisome. Praiseworthy, because it serves society; worrisome, because it is despised by the ruling class. Efforts are underway to subdue social media.
People, who admire social media for being an alternative platform to electronic media to seek and spread truth, must get ready for defending this demand or need of theirs to the hilt. They may not be supported much by electronic media which views social media as its (financial) competitor. If society values truth, it must speak for the existence of a powerful social media, and not an attenuated, subjugated one.
