Pessoptimism and Social Media

Social media has seeped into every aspect of life, including con ict. e Russian/ Ukrainian war, which started on 24 February 2022, has been branded the ‘World’s rst TikTok war’, with an almost ceaseless ow of content surrounding the crisis. Four days a er the beginning of the war, a video showing a blonde-haired and blue-eyed eightyear-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. is is courage simplicitta [simply]’. e 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. e 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. e 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. is video, among others, was included in the Shefeld Documentary Film Festival 2022. Arguably, engagement with social media puts a human face to the con ict, 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 a airs. A 2019 study conducted by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford surveyed 75,000 respondents across ve continents and 38 markets. Amongst the questions asked was ‘What is people’s main source of news?’, with an overwhelming majority (46%) answering ‘online’. is includes social media, which the report says has increasingly become a news source since 2014. e fact of the matter is that Orientalism and racializing still exist within journalism today. ere is a clear ‘othering’ of the non-Western world and a cultural superiority when it comes to discussing ideas and concepts that are non-Western. e journalistic hegemony that the Western world holds critically limits the e ectiveness of journalism in places such as Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. e hierarchy at play doesn’t just focus on narratives but also culture, race, ethnicity, language, and religion. e reach of mass media outlets allows the power to remain in Western journalism and for a successful undermining of attempts to break the status quo. e damage that Orientalism has done to the colonized world is unquanti able, but there needs to be a greater drive among new journalists today to ensure a plurality. e ‘othering’, racial stereotypes, and cultural superiority that exists in Western journalism need to be eradicated to allow greater diversity in the eld. is 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.

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. e very purpose of staying connected with other people is for the purpose of updating each other.

Social media is unique in the way that it enables underrepresented 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. e 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 e 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 con rmation 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. is has been termed a ‘ lter 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.

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 shi ing world around them. A person is less likely to question something when they agree with it. is is especially dangerous when the content consumed may be factually inaccurate, as with Tamimi’s video.

However, it is important to challenge the kind of content that we consume. e 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 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 o en are the most in need have the least access to them.