Name: Hanreich Lowis V.

Cheng 10/12/21
Discuss comprehensively. Give examples and situations to further expound your arguments.
Social media has profoundly impacted how societies live and communicate around the world.
Citizens have access to different social media platforms to discover, inform, and express their
views and opinions about politics, religion, economy, history, science, and so on.

1. While democratic countries embrace social media, non-democratic rulers and governments
find this phenomenon challenging. Investigate the causes and effects of social media
throughout societies where citizens do not live under democratic rule, and their
governments reject principles for the rule of law.
Democracy is a widely accepted kind of government, where the general public has the power to
choose which persons or representatives will lead the nation to a better present and future, but
democracy being widely accepted means that not everyone accepts the concept of general
distribution of power to choose who and how a nation must be led. There exist the concepts of
communism, dictatorship, monarchy, and such. What does this have to do with social media?
Social media by definition, is a collective term for websites and applications that focus on
communication, community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration that has a
main purpose of promoting socialization with each other through various platforms commonly
found in the internet, one great example is Facebook.
Throughout the world, there are many famous non-democratic countries such as China, Saudi
Arabia, the infamous North Korea and etc. As I investigate the causes and effects of social media
to those kind of society, I asked the question. Does social media exist in such societies or forms
of government?
According to my research, social media from non-democratic countries exist but are largely
prohibited particularly in Saudi Arabia and North Korea, while in china, they have multiple
variety of social media, such as WeChat, Tencent QQ, and many more. In Saudi Arabia, where
many human rights activist use social media to bring aloud their rights, many have been arrested
and put into trial but people tend to keep on using social media. They had also used it to organize
online rants and indirectly voice out the Human Rights to their leaders.
While, in the infamous North Korea, as the technology advances, they cannot keep to ignore it,
and they actually have their own kind of internet and gadgets, where it presents news, videos and
etc. but because we know that the North Korean leader, does not want its people to be familiar
with the outside world, it possess many risk especially to those who illegally distribute or even
watch videos, movies, or any form of communication to the outside world, risk as heavy as a
death penalty for such acts. According to an interview with a North Korean defector, people
would often take the great risk just to be able to get a hand on those videos, or movies, and a
Tech analyst said while analyzing a North Korean android gadget, people are very well
monitored in every aspect, particularly in their gadgets. He said that every 10 minutes, the gadget
itself will perform automatic screen shots that are sent to the government for monitoring. He also
observed how files can sometimes not be opened, and said that certain files can only open if it is
signed by the government, so if we try to give it a file, like a random video, a message pops up
saying “file not signed”, this keeps the gadget free and unable to be used for illegal acts, so many
violators aim to get android gadget first.
On the other hand, we know that China and America has many disputes, so the Chinese
government tries to ban all the American programs that exist online, such as the news about
Huawei that prohibits the preloaded Google applications in their products. The Chinese
government also tries to put a hold to many mainstream social medias, although they discourage
people to use social media from foreign countries, many are still using them, so many technology
companies introduces many social medias to the public, such as WeChat, etc. Another effect of
social media to Chinese citizen is the rise of “social climbers” in China. Many Chinese women
aim to live a luxurious life by partnering up with wealthy celebrities and other wealthy people in
china or from a foreign country, so they practiced and disguised themselves to look like in the
same social class to charm their victims. In china, they even have their own training or school
just to practice being a social climbers and help them achieve their goal. In China, particularly in
the Hong Kong, where it is the only region in China that practices democracy, but is now being
endangered through China’s movement. That is why many protest are being performed in Hong
Kong, and they often used social medias to organize such wide scale protest and to also plan
their strategy in avoiding the surveillance system of China in identifying them.
In conclusion, the impact of having a social media in a non-democratic government, serves not
only for entertainment purposes but mainly for speaking out the their opinions, views and rights
for other people to hear and realize, and to their government to plead for action and equality. For
some it may be used as a form of occupation, like some Chinese women. In the meantime, the
absence of social media, drives some people to look for it and take a hold of it even if it risks
their life, especially in North Korea. Overall, from what I have observed, many countries not
under democracy, bans social media because they don’t want to hear the many complaints about
their government, and because they want to keep their power over their people under control. So,
the presence of social media in other countries are not taken lightly as it can make a certain loss
of control over its people.
2. What events have happened in the world recently where the people have been organized
through social media platforms? Explain the government’s response to the peoples’
actions. If this action is current, describe what you think the outcome for the people might
be. Give reasons why you believe this is so.
Over the years, there have been many various events that has happened , either
historically significant or not. And as the technology improve, especially the application of social
media to our everyday lifestyle in this modern time, it has become one of the key components of
modern communication, thus it has also become the common means of organizing wide events.
One of the events that have happened recently, are the series of rallies in Hong Kong. The rally
was so wide that the roads are full of people. Many people have been gathering and planning
through their social medias according to the interviewed activist. The rally was about a single bill
that gives power to Hong Kong to intervene about cases set in Taiwan, but many see this as a
way of pro-China leaders to also give power to China to intervene in Hong Kong, and possibly
de-establish the democracy of Hong Kong. This angers the crowds of Hong Kong and triggers
the planning of wide rallies. The government’s intervention to the wide scale rallies was to
determine the organizers and try to hack into the peoples social media to predict rallies and plan
accordingly to the degree of rally. The government of Hong Kong or the council that controls
Hong Kong consist mainly of pro-China representatives, thus they try to mitigate and control the
crowds by using all possible means such as barricades, surveillance systems to identify
organizers, police force, and such. According to an activist that introduced himself as one of the
organizers, they planned by using various social medias and encrypted messages to prevent
themselves to be identified by various hackers under the government, they also planned the use
of lasers to shine it on the CCTV’s with facial recognition and other paraphernalia to hide and
protect themselves from surveillance system of China.
I believe that the outcome is still vague, but I know for sure that it will be hard for the Hong
Kong citizens to maintain their democracy since China’s government is tough when it comes to
simple protests and rallies, for China has been known to even disregard some of the rules and
regulations issued by the UN and ASEAN, particularly about the territorial dispute in West
Philippine Sea, which was already acknowledge by a court. So, I believe that rallies cannot easily
change the view and ways of China’s government.
Another event organized through social media was from Saudi Arabia about the rights of women
to drive. Which also triggered protest but in an online form since Saudi Arabia’s government is
also strict.
In conclusion, “fighting against the views and goals of a certain government is hard but fighting
for what is right is what makes it worth it”- said by a Hong Kong rally participant.
3. In the Philippine contexts, has social media been a net positive or a net negative for our
society? Why? Does social media bring us together or further divide us? Does it make the
political divide worse? What should be the role of government in social media?
Social media has been part of our daily life and has been a normal means of
communication to everyone. One of the issues or the perceived negative impact of social media
to our society is the occurrence of many toxic and ignorant users of it. Another, is the
discrimination formed inside the social media, due to multiple views in politics, history, religion,
science, etc.
In my opinion, social media has a net positive impact to our society because imagine a society
where social media does not exist, although I believe that a world is much quieter without social
media and less toxic but I also believe that, those qualities are what makes us human and creates
opportunity to help and teach those toxic and ignorant people to know what is right and what is
the point of accepting multiple views and respecting them in a calm and logical matter.
We can also see social media as a double edged sword we can use, but we have instead the
power to mitigate its negative effects by putting a foam or by giving it to the blacksmith to dull
the other edge. By a putting foam, it means putting or introducing alternatives that can help to
promote a much healthy use of social media such as improved rules and regulations, better
censorship, better response to reported issues, etc. While giving it to the blacksmith, means
giving opportunities to those experts that has a capability to change or alter the perceived
negative effects of social media such as great speakers that can spread teachings about the
healthy way of using social media, and other experts.
Therefore, since most of the negative impacts can be mitigated, a net positive impact can be
expected from my point of view such as the easy and efficient means of communication, and a
channel to express or share our views and to also learn from other’s perspective and/or
experience.
I believe that social media don’t technically divide us but actually unite us. From my own
perspective, although it forms a line between those who believe in who, the actions of expressing
our political view unites us in the thought of wanting a better future for our society and
government. The “divide” in view or political views is normal since we are humans and it is
normal to have different perspective, after all, we are not like everyone and we have different
ways of both expressing and perceiving things around us. So, I conclude that social media does
more in uniting us than dividing us, especially in political views, in the end we only want what is
better for us.
I believe the only role of government to social media is to become one of the blacksmith that will
spread or promote the proper and healthy use of social media, since if the government will
intervene in the views of people, it will violate the right of everyone to express their opinions,
which can cause a lot of trouble for the government. Additionally, they be the producer and
validator of truths with a backed up evidence to mitigate confusion from information spreading
in the social medias, which helps people to have a much healthy view to our government.