BY MULUGETA GUDETA
What differentiates Africa from other parts of the world is that social media here is used for destructive as well as constructive purposes. Social media in Africa are triggers of conflicts and bloodsheds while they are mostly catalysts of business and technology in more developed regions. Catalysts what is perhaps paradoxical is the fact that Western countries invent new communication technology and we African are using them to foster conflicts that claim many innocent lives. This is bound to lead us to the important consideration that communication technology can be destructive depending on the context and social and political environments prevailing in many African countries.
This does not however to say that social media is not used for promoting political turmoil in developed countries. A few years ago, former US president Donald Trump was allegedly using Twitter platform to mobilize his constituency to dispute the legality of the last presidential election that he lost. This had led to serious dispute culminating in the invasion of the White House by Trump followers. The case was brought to court and the former president is found guilty of fomenting dissent and even an insurrection.
The big news in 2022 in the area of social media communication culture and technology is the transfer of Twitter to the ownership of American billionaire Elon Musk who made business history by spending 44 billion US dollars on an apparently simple tool that has become a major political game changer in the world of human communication. Its cultural implications are also obvious. This buyout has brought social media technology and business to a new level thereby defining the way how we will communicate and interact for generations to come.
For the uninitiated like you and I, American multibillionaire Elon Musk’s buying of Twitter for a nerve racking 44 billion dollars could sound like a page from a sci-fi novel where the leading character might be a human out of this world. Judging by how fortunes are spent on new gadgets or communication tools we can be assured that the race to dominate the world through mind control and ‘newspeak’ is getting hotter year after year. Social media platforms are highly profitable enterprises. Suffice it to look at the brief history of Facebook that was born in a Harvard university dormitory and took a few years to conquer the world and become one of the most profitable social media outlets.
In the world of social media end users come after advertisers who, according to many analysts, are the real customers while individual users are simply collateral beneficiaries if I may be allowed to use the term. In other words, Twitter or any other communication tool does not exist for the sake or the benefit of individual users but those of advertisers who pay more than 99 percent of the company’s incomes. Although “the collateral users” are not the more important consumers, they are paying the price for the negative cultural fallouts of social media platforms as they suffer the consequences of fake news circulating thanks to the platforms that do not care how many people are suffering because of it simply because they are not the real customers and are not therefore kings. The real customers or kings are the advertising companies who pay the bulk of the incomes of the social media outlets.
We have left behind “1984”, the title of the novel by Aldous Huxley but the actions described in it by Big Brother are reenacting themselves through personalities like Musk and others. Musk’s spending to buy Twitter can only be described as defying the imagination. However, the billionaire’s objective may not be making profits by reselling it which is the principle ruling such transactions.
No, Musk does not look to be a greedy investor from Wall Street but a man driven by the idea of controlling the world by setting his own laws as to how people should communicate with one another. This looks in a way part and parcel of his drive to conquer and control the space through his Space X project and now he is out to control the human mind, which is itself as complex as the space above us, and satisfy his cravings for control. Money is not here the prime motive. A man with even a billion dollars in his account would do whatever they like in this world for the rest of their lives.
Why a renowned rocket scientist and the maker of electric cars spent so much money to buy an apparently simple tool for sending and receiving messages in matters of second is indeed baffling. Elon Musk’s Space X is doing fine in space exploration area while his electric cars are in great demand while Twitter is buckling under its own worth and weight particularly after its new boss decided to take control of the social media giant and later on changed his mind and brought in a little known woman to head his new acquisition. This rather demonstrated the tight hold social media tools have on our imagination while their growth seems to know no restraint or any sign of slowing down.
Why Musk wanted to take control of Twitter might be another story in its own right since the transaction took place at a not so ideal moment in world business when inflation is increasingly becoming a global economic menace. Musk’s decision may however be explained by his recent obsession with communication technology as a mover and shaker of global culture and society as a tool of influence in politics and society. Musk may also have a hidden ambition to one day use his money and technological powers to seek the highest executive post in US politics.
However, Musk has another more philanthropist or altruistic objective at the back of his mind. In a statement he made following the transfer of Twitter to his growing business empire, Musk said that, “He is buying Twitter to help humanity.” The same sources, quoted the billionaire as saying that Mr. Musk did not buy the firm to “make more money. I did to try to help humanity whom I love.” Musk’s claim may be disputable as some online publications have denounced through their articles. As they often put it, the driving force for Musk to spend so much to acquire Twitter is pure and simple capitalist profit motive.
Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook have radically changed the way we communicate and the way we entertain ourselves now and in the future. Their advance is irresistible simply because humans are fond of getting in touch with one another and enjoying other forms of entertainments. We are living a kind of futuristic world where culture is undergoing unstoppable metamorphosis while dictating us how we should communicate, dance and sing and watch movies. In this post-modern world of social media ascendency, humans are proving that they are before anything else not only Homo sapiens but Homos sapiens with an unstoppable obsession with technology and digital culture.
According to another view, digital culture is so fluid and ever changing that it may not help cultural tendencies to crystallize for the long run. A recent article on the Internet entitled “Digital Culture and Social Media” says that, “The only constant in digital culture is change which may sound clichéd, but the underlying ICT structure s shift so often that it can be difficult for cultural trends to take hold.” The same article goes on to highlight the fact that “evolving information and communication technologies (ICTs) can influence the mass media and contribute to social and cultural change in the process.”
If the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk may not represent a “revolution” the social media environment in many African countries that are already adopting it on a grand scale. Many articles are circulating on the internet describing the beneficial consequences of digital media on African politics, economics and societies. According to one of those articles, entitled, Mainstreaming African Digital Cultures, Practices and Emerging Forms of Citizen Engagement, “On the political front, the direct interactions between citizens and politicians visa social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are unprecedented. The interactions have broken deep-seated political barriers and the traditional culture of fear associated with publicly challenging and confronting the political elite has been deflated, albeit in dispersed digital spaces. Equally, civil society institutions and special interest groups are galvanizing and increasingly devoting more time and resources to virtual deliberative forums.”
Another article entitled Digital Media and Globalization maintains that, “Globalization on the hand is the continuation and expansion of Western imperialism. It is a fresh phase of re-colonization African societies which attempts to continue Western linguistic heritage and literacy canons at the expense of African indigenous language and literature. Globalization tends to diminish the value of cultural practices of Africa. The culture of the developed economy has obviously taken over the local culture…”
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 30 DECEMBER 2022
