Pessoptimism and Social Media
Artemis Sianni-Wedderburn, BA (Hons) Arabic and Politics
Social media has seeped into every aspect of life, including conflict. The Russian/ Ukrainian war, which started on 24 February 2022, has been branded the ‘World’s first TikTok war’, with an almost ceaseless flow of content surrounding the crisis. Four days after the beginning of the war, a video showing a blonde-haired and blue-eyed eight-year-old girl circulated on TikTok, a popular streaming platform for short videos. It was accompanied by the caption, ‘An 8 year Ukraine girl confronts a Russian soldier telling him to go back to his country. This is courage simplicitta [simply]’. The footage was viewed over 12 million times.
Ahed Tamimi, the girl in the video, is from the village of Nabi Salih in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The video was shot 10 years before its re-emergence on social media, branded as an act of Ukrainian resistance. In it, Tamimi demands the return of her 15-year-old brother, Waad, who was arrested minutes before the video was shot. The video received almost one million likes on TikTok before being debunked by multiple news outlets, Al Jazeera and Reuters among them.
On the same platform, TikTok user ‘Valerisssh’ posts videos showcasing daily life in Ukraine. ‘My typical day in a bomb shelter’ at the time of writing has 51.1 million views. This video, among others, was included in the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival 2022. Arguably, engagement with social media puts a human face to the conflict, and the platform’s user-friendly nature makes it accessible.
As digitalisation runs its rampant course, there is a consistent increase in the number of people relying exclusively on social media to stay up to date with current affairs. A 2019 study conducted by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford surveyed 75,000 respondents across five continents and 38 markets. Amongst the questions asked was ‘What is people’s main source of news?’, with an overwhelming majority (46%) answering ‘online’. This includes social media, which the report says has increasingly become a news source since 2014.
Pessoptimism
Social media is unique in the way that it enables under-represented voices to be heard, for example, that of a 20-year-old girl living in war-torn Ukraine. However, the lack of checks and balances surrounding creating and posting content can lead to the circulation of fake news. The piece may eventually be fact-checked, but not before it has reached a global audience. It is far easier to publish on Instagram than it is to publish in The Economist.
Additionally, predetermined and exceptionally personalised algorithms mean that a lot of the time, the user is only exposed to content that reinforces their existing opinion, leading to confirmation bias. It creates a personalised digital echo chamber, which is an environment where the only information available is that which reinforces the user’s existing bias. This has been termed a ‘filter bubble’ by Eli Parisier, and is especially poignant as it combines with already personalised algorithms. As we morph, so does the content we consume and the way that we do so; digitalised adverts on the sides of London buses distract from the quotidian while Google suggests Christmas presents based on recipes from months prior.
In a world that is seeing the breaking down of traditional forms of community life in the face of globalisation, social media provides a space to be a part of something. To connect, which is the most human of desires. However, interconnectivity will always be mutually inclusive with the news. The very purpose of staying connected with other people is for the purpose of updating each other.
Yet, a great danger is posed when the only kind of news that someone receives is from social media. It risks perpetually reinforcing existing views, making them stagnant in the shifting world around them. A person is less likely to question something when they agree with it. This is especially dangerous when the content consumed may be factually inaccurate, as with Tamimi’s video.
This is not to say that social media is not a useful tool. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence routinely publishes content on various platforms and has said that international engagement with their memes and videos has been pivotal in ensuring that international support for Ukraine maintains momentum.
However, it is important to challenge the kind of content that we consume. The fact that Tamimi’s video only gained widespread international traction when linked to Ukraine exposes a lack of international attention on Palestine and double standards in the media surrounding race and representation.
“As life moves ever more from the print into the online realm, the checks and balances that print ensures erode along with it”
As life moves ever more from print into the online realm, the checks and balances that print ensures erode along with it. It is up to the reader to implement them, especially when those who often are the most in need have the least access to them.
