Keeping the Throne: On Social Media

Introduction

In the modern world, where technological advancements are made every day, multi-billion-dollar ideas are generated all across the world, and we are more interconnected than we have been ever before, the throne of the strongest nation is now, more than ever, at risk of being toppled. As militaries rapidly expand and capabilities of foreign powers soar, the one on top will see this as a threat, and take action -- drastic, rapid, and unforgiving action.

In this series, Maintaining the World’s Leading Nation, I will be talking about the various plans and methods the world’s strongest power may deploy—sometimes not for the better of the world at large—to keep its place at the very top. And as you have probably inferred from the title, today, I will be talking about social media.

The Importance of Social Media in Global Politics

Before I get into the “how” of keeping other nations at bay in terms of social media, let me first talk about the “what” and “why”.

“Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.”

This is Google’s definition of it, basically; a platform allowing users to connect and share information (whether this is biased or fake). This information, whether you like it or not, is constantly being monitored, whether you are in Europe, the US, or China, everything is reviewed and documented. With that being said, these are also the hubs of communication and the taking in of information for billions of people (Facebook alone has 2.7), and this is where politics comes in.

Social networking sites make it to where those with large influence and popularity (or notoriety for that matter) are placed at the forefront of what people see, to them, this captures people’s attention, but for governments and political figures, this is their chance to spread their views and opinions in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways.

Now, this is where the interesting stuff comes in: the world’s most frequently-used social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat), every single one of them, are based in the US, which, in our world, is currently the world’s superpower. And before you start ranting about WeChat and TikTok, be patient—I am getting there.

And as the major social media services are based in the strongest superpower, that nation will, to an extremely large extent, be able to control them. The country may be able to charge the companies which do not obey its orders criminal or civil cases (as the US has threatened to do) as well as placing hefty fines. The nation in control may tell them to do its bidding.

And as a huge chunk of the world’s population depends on these sites/platforms to absorb news, facts, and other information, the leading nation in the world will be able to control, to a large extent, the public opinion. They may wipe certain comments and posts made by opposing ideologies/governments under the excuse of ‘national security’ as well as evidence suggesting wrongdoing on their part, for “national interest”.

To sum all this up, for the leading power, as long as all major social media sites are belonging to that nation’s, then it can essentially control what information enters the public eye, as well as how (and how much) enters. This will allow them to rouse the population of the world for their benefit, gaining support for certain causes which allows them to profit while diminishing campaigns and information which do not.

This is a lot of power to hold, and as many of you know, governments tend to use the power they have, as long as it is beneficial to them. Even when it gnaws away at rights and freedom, they will take advantage of it for as long as they could, and they won’t exactly like to let go.

What this Means for Rising Social Media Companies

Now that you understand the importance of social media platforms in terms of politics and government status & stability, let’s take a look at what the top power of the world will do to keep that power. The best way to do that, I believe, is to look into the case study of TikTok and WeChat, the two major anomalies in our social media platform list. The former is an app created by conglomerate ByteDance, the latter a work by Tencent, both Chinese.

And if you didn’t know already, China is the rising “challenger” to the US, as second place in the world economy and still rapidly growing, some believe it is projected to surpass our current number one. And of course, the US doesn’t want that. And as we know, the US is currently holding a monopoly over mainstream social media platforms, or should I say, was.

When China rose to the challenge with its social media platforms, WeChat, with 1.15 billion users, and 500 million on TikTok, the US responded. Because for them, if these networking platforms keep on growing, especially internationally, the US will no longer be holding total control over the information stream of the world. In other words, it will be unable to push and pull public opinion in the way it likes. And does America like that concept?

No. Period.

On the grounds of national security, the US has banned TikTok on 20 September 2020, meaning that it is not possible to download the app in the US App Store, and is planning to push back on WeChat next. This is unless it is sold to an American company, in which case, the domain of social media will, once again, be under its hands.

No, the US isn’t banning TikTok because it thinks its citizens will be spied on. That is not the case. The US wants to rid TikTok as a possible threat to its dominion in the terms of online information exchange so that it will keep the privileges it enjoys as the sole power of social media.

So What?

Now, here comes the question: what’s the problem with that? Well, there are two main points.

First of all, it impacts any country in all holding power over general public opinion and thought: the falsification, slander, and brainwashing of viewers. Here, you may say something along the lines of: “How are any of the social media an act of brainwashing?” and that, my dear reader, will be a sign that you have been brainwashed. I have seen people drawing direct connections between communism and freedom of speech (or rather, the lack thereof). I have seen people suggest that anything the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) says is either lies or propaganda. I have seen people talking about how statistics from China are much less trustworthy than that of the US’ or UK’s. All of these are completely false and distorted views, yet people go about them as if they are facts and common sense. All I can think of, as a response to this, is just:

…

Secondly are the ideals of the free market and the improvement of society based on that. An oversimplification of this is that if you allow companies to compete in a healthy environment, they will strive for the best and create better products, therefore benefiting society. However, this process is cut short as nations use political manoeuvres and threats to disrupt the growth of companies to instead benefit themselves instead of global interests. In the case of the US, statements have proved a substantial deal of hypocrisy. Companies from many nations (but recently China for the most part) are accused of “stealing jobs and intellectual property”, while the US itself is committing an armed robbery on a global scale against defenceless companies.

Conclusion

We are in a quickly changing world, where individuals are more interconnected than ever, however, certain organisations see this as an opportunity to drive us further apart for their own interests. So, before you blindly follow anything, think and consider and read between the lines: what are they trying to do? Is this a ploy to divide the world further?

Sources (For further reading):

• Twitter - Encyclopedia Britannica

• Facebook - Wikipedia

• Instagram - Instagram

• Whatsapp - Wikipedia

• Snapchat - Wikipedia

• TikTok and Wechat: US to Ban App Downloads - BBC