Social Media and the Government

Social Media has been in the news lately for a lot of reasons. The Cambridge Analytica leak, the rapid polarization of people via sharing of fake news, trolls acting on the part of vested interests either political parties or businesses, bullying and ridiculing their naysayers. There has been a lot of outrage generated and we the common people feel that we need to side with one party or the other.

Social media is an important platform that allows our leaders to engage with us and vice versa. We can use it to make our leaders more accountable to us. Anyone that we support and elect to represent us is responsible to us. As responsible citizens, we should use the platform to find common pain points and surface them up. Our leaders should then listen to those that question their opinions, whether right or wrong they and react after careful assessment of the facts.

With the government hiring new social media experts to monitor the voice of the people it gives us the opportunity to observe how committed the government is to listening to dissenters as well as supporters and serving both impartially. Our leaders and representatives are human too and have their failings. To help them succeed and grow we need to question them. Rampant fandom and blind faith can be very detrimental to a leader. Voicing your opinion against them when they are doing things that are not right will ultimately benefit them. Social media will also give us an opportunity to judge how leaders engage with people in their sphere of influence, how they communicate, whether they are using hate speech or positive motivation to get their messages across.

Social media is a platform that is a reminder to those who owe their power to you, that they are answerable to you. Let us use it wisely to keep our leaders accountable. It's a powerful medium when used the right way.
#ConnectAndEngage