AS SEEN ON TV
Online sorties and other virtual vandals
The campaign fever moves from visceral to virtual. Social networking sites are ablaze with campaign activity and paraphernalia these days that it’s hard to go online with a smile on the face from login to logout. The frowning is brought about by how political the internet has become. I can hardly suppress a smirk at how presumptuous some candidates are by posting their campaign materials on my page.
A Facebook acceptance of friendship does not mean you had me at hello. It does not signify my vote for you, nor my belief for what you represent. It does not give you the right to vandalize my wall.
On Facebook I have been getting friend requests not just from real people but from flyers and posters of this and that candidate and it is now hard to distinguish between a real person or a juridical personality/non-human entity just representing a candidate, a party, a partylist or a movement. In some cases, I have unfriended the most unruly and the unscrupulous that take advantage of the Facebook-friendly and his personal space.
And it is hard to maintain frienships with a poster as it hardly observes proper decorum, tact or basic human courtesy. And I despise it when these groups post their advocacies and campaign materials on my Facebook wall like it’s public domain. Posting campaign materials on someone else’s Facebook wall is not just offensive to the owner of profile but to his friends as well. These vandals push prefered content down. Facebook which is one’s personal space, is rather filled with pictures, posts, or opinions of people that matter to the owner.
If there’s a Facebook App that says “Post No Bill” in big bold letters, I shall promptly subscribe to it until a new president gets elected. It could very well be my temporary profile pic.
The reason why many of today’s candidates are conquering social sites is public engagement. Social Media expert Carlo Ople said “the internet is a potent marketing tool which can be used to build brands”.
Political brands included.
Campaigning online does have its benefits as it cuts the burden of crude, costly and tiresome person-to-person campaigning. Politicians, political parties and movements now piggy back on a potential voter’s network or “virtual sphere of influence” to achieve exponential popularity at a limited time.
Campaigning to a Facebook profile with 3,000 friends can be more effective than an actual barangay tour. If someone’s 3,000 Facebook friends can deliver even just 1% of votes? This easily translates to a potential 30 voters a candidate need not feed, pay, shake hands with or whisper sweet nothings to—- for their nods.
Just as social networking sites are powerful campaign vehicle. They are also an efficient smear campaign venue. I’ve had a couple of multi-media materials posted on my wall which I have judiciously removed because it was distasteful to have them on one’s wall. These were posted by people with bad intentions, or those that innocently repost and share material posted by others.
It was on Facebook that I first encountered Villar’s photo swimming in a sea of garbage, or Noynoy’s slip ups and his alleged “slipping into looney mode once in his lifetime”, or the misspelled “Bigo” for “Gibo” flyers. On the internet, visuals can get enhanced to prove a point, i.e. Villar with a mole to illustrate the “Villaroyo” phenomenon.
And nothing beats a political mudsling posted as a shoutout which is by far the easiest to “like” or unlike, just as it is the easiest to “repost” or share. The saddest part is a lot of people believe what they see on the internet, where rumors become bible truth in an instant.
Now there are issues raised on the effectivity of online campaigning with the low internet penetration rate in the country’s grassroots. Some cynicism prevails over the largely un-tech savvy CDE group which comprises the bulk of Philippine voters as against the AB market-dominated social networking sites many candidates seem to “waste time on”.
But think again.
In terms of “success rate” in the upcoming automated elections, the tech savvy’s ballot would most likely get accepted by Comelec’s “discriminating” PCOS machine, than the ballot of someone who is encountering poll automation for the first time and who may be committing unacceptable mistakes. PCOS machines may reject the ballots of those who may be having difficulty following “rigid” shading, or understanding ballot-filling instructions.
That’s why politicians seek the tech savvy who could deliver the votes for them in the country’s first techy polls. And in cyberspace, they lurk.
