How to avoid trouble in social media

“The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.”

—Ogden Nash

By Alex P. Vidal

IN order to avoid trouble in the social media, may I respectfully suggest the following: 

1. BE HUMBLE. Refrain from feeling “sikat” (famous), special, and important. Let’s always plant our feet on the ground by showing that we belong. No one is superior here. “Ownership” of a Facebook account is not a special power or privilege. We are all at the beck and mercy of the Facebook administrator who has the authority to terminate our account if we misbehave.  

2. DON’T EMBARRASS OTHERS. If we don’t like or don’t agree with the comments or posts of others especially on topics about religion and politics, let’s not embarrass them. All opinions matter. We must avoid provocative and insulting comments. Don’t do to others what we wouldn’t want others do unto us. Respect begets respect. We can’t win an argument if we use bullying tactics. We don’t have the exclusive franchise to humiliate others; if we do, expect a retaliation and a slanderous brawl.

3. BE NICE; BE DECENT. Let’s use the social media to foster camaraderie and win friends (especially those we haven’t met in person but were always commenting on our walls). Let’s avoid the use of expletives and hurting words, if possible. If we have nothing good to say or post, post or say nothing. Just in case we inadvertently forget to “like” good and kind comments, let’s always reply with a “thank you.”

4. NO CURSING, PLEASE. If we have a domestic spat with our partners, children, parents, officemates, employers, employees; if we disagree with our electric and phone bills, let’s not declare an Armageddon in the social media. Let’s protect the social media’s internal ecosystem with a quality and above-board interaction; let’s not poison the Facebook community with laser-laced profanities if we are galit sa mundo (mad at the universe).

5. DON’T GOSSIP; DON’T SOW INTRIGUE. Gossiping and sowing of intrigues are the No. 1 killers of friendship, goodwill, and peace of mind; the No. 1 promoters of feud, bedlam, deep-seated strife in the social media. Let’s altogether discard and detest them.

Politicians use social media to fight back

“The influence of social media is unbelievable. It's sad to see-it's a fake life that some people live.”
—Virgil van Dijk

By Alex P. Vidal

SOME politicians have been using the social media not only to promote themselves during the elections, but also to attack those who criticize them in the mainstream media.
Using their Facebook and Twitter accounts, pugnacious politicians also blame those responsible for their electoral defeat, while those in power hit back at their media critics in full throttle.
It appears they have weaponized the social media “to level the playing field,” so to speak.
If you criticize us in your newspaper, TV, radio station, blog, we can also strike back using our social media accounts, is what they appear to be grumbling.
They feel their supporters’ and fans’ favorable comments and “likes” in Facebook, Twitter, and other platform, are enough to assuage their frazzled emotions or to “avenge” the critical items in the mainstream media that tormented them.
A president devotes 80 percent of his time to lambast his political adversaries on Twitter; a defeated candidate for Iloilo City council blames a partymate who won a seat in the House of Representatives for “campaigning against me.”
A defeated candidate for congress uses his Facebook account to sour-grape; a defeated candidate for vice mayor “blocked” Facebook friends who did not support him; a frustrated congressman “wishes” for the downfall of his former rivals in a series of vicious posts; a member of the Sangguniang Panlungsod taunts a columnist who criticized an ”irrelevant” resolution the former had authored; to mention only a few.         

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Are they effective? Thirty percent YES; seventy percent NO.
The social media has become their base, their solace or comfort zone. 
What they get when supporters and fans “like” their social media outbursts and write sympathetic comments are instant but temporary relief and self-serving “retribution” for an imaginary hurt. 
Politicians who feel this way are onion-skinned and think they don’t deserve to be criticized and scrutinized. 
When they err and the adversarial media confront them, they become paranoid and treat the constructive criticism as an attack against their persona. 
They grumble: “You criticize me because you don’t like me and you want me to fail.”  
What they didn’t realize was the number of people, their audience in the social media don’t represent the majority of those who follow and monitor what they do in public service. 
Praises and sympathies from members of the social media fans club don’t change anything about their competence and worth as public servants. 

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Many members of the social media fans club don’t even vote and are only “effective” in as far as glamour of social interaction is concerned. 
Their opinions don’t represent the true sentiments of the mainstream public.
It’s actually the politicians’ empty victory, or a make-believe conquest of negative opinions leveled against them in the mainstream media, which is still the more effective, powerful, and decisive.
Engaging the Fourth Estate in a “showdown” won’t work for politicians pissed off by constructive criticism, or criticism meant to help them become effective and better leaders.
After five, six, or even a dozen posts in any social media attacking their critics, the set of “friends” in their hollowed territory won’t be able to see or read the posts again. 
When we check the Internet any time in any part of the globe, their series of ferocious and harsh social media posts can’t be located or even “searched”, while all the articles in the news websites detailing their incompetence, lack of civility and decorum, their being onion-skinned, their corruption and abuses will instantly appear and can never be forgotten.
Just “Google” them.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)



  









  

Don’t rely on social media

“The more social media we have, the more we think we're connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other.”
--JOHN ARTHUR

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Social media like Facebook appears to be the most favorite platform of many candidates gunning for major seats in the Philippine elections on May 2019.
Just like in the 2016 elections, many candidates then relied heavily on the social media to propagate their programs and further tell their “friends” who they are and what are they capable of doing more once they are elected or reelected.
Some of those with edge in name recall didn’t find it hard to win with or without campaigning in the social media.
Some relatively unknown bets or newcomers, even if they spent a bulk of their free time advertising themselves as worthy candidates in the social media, ended by the wayside.
We also know of several prominent reelectionists who didn’t make it in the 2016 elections after giving their full time, trust and reliance on the social media
Reason?
They thought the social media is the end-all and be-all of the winning formula in the elections.
Wrong.
Not all of our (limited to only 5,000) “friends” in the social media can vote; not all are registered voters; not all of them will vote for us even if they belong in our provinces, districts, cities, or municipalities.
Not all of them are truly our "fans" with fanaticism or blind loyalty to us.

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Moral of the story: go out, move your butts, shake the hands of the people and visit places with rich voting population like public markets, churches, villages, terminal stations.
Participate in debates and media fora and actively speak in communities with large gatherings.
Go to the people directly, make eye-to-eye contact with them, touch their hearts and connect in their minds.
Social media can’t help elect any candidate.
We can’t convince the voters that we are genuine public servants, that we are good leaders and sincere aspirants for a public office by merely posting “selfie” photos, pictures of the food we eat in a popular restaurant and exotic vacation spots and countries we recently visited.
Social media is only good for pa-cute and pa-porma effect and doesn’t have the hard-wired power and influence to amaze or tantalize a true-blue and dyed-in-the-wool voter who genuinely cares for his province, district, city, and country as a whole.

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Like many fellow journalists in the Philippines and in other countries, we are closely monitoring the developments in the no-holds barred investigations being undertaken in the mysterious disappearance of our colleague, the brave Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was believed to be murdered and chopped to pieces when he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018.
Here’s what we have gathered as of this writing (noontime, October 17, 2019 US Eastern time):
-There appeared to be a possible tie to the crown prince: Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, a Saudi diplomat and intelligence officer, is among the men under investigation by the Turkish authorities as part of the probe of the disappearance and suspected death of Khashoggi. Mutreb is closely connected to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, a Saudi source told CNN.
-US-Turkey meetings: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and, separately, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in Ankara. Each meeting lasted about 40 minutes. Pompeo did not make remarks after the meetings and has now left Turkey for Brussels.
-The Turkish investigation: Turkish investigators collected a large number of DNA samples from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul when they searched it Monday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported Wednesday, without saying where the information came from.
-What hasn't been searched: Turkish officials have not yet searched the Saudi consul’s residence in Istanbul and it is not clear when they will. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Wednesday the search would happen “once a joint consensus is reached.”
We monitor this shocking news regularly and are very much interested on what will happen to the probe because like Khashoggi, we also write critical stories in a hope to help our government and not to topple it.
We maintain that journalists are partners of our government officials in public service, not enemies.