No shame in politics?
Truth and lies was different in the world till the invention of social media, now the truth is truth which people believe to be true no matter how many lies it has and the lie is what listeners and viewers consider to be lies, no matter how truth is it.
With the arrival of trolls and bots, the field is yours, you are victorious Public issues, and good governance are now a thing of the past.
Now is the time for top trends in politics. Lie, spread this lie through trolls and bots. Troll is an activist who is spreading a particular narrative/ stance on social media and bots play the role of a fictitious worker and this is an artificial account.
If you have the money, the patronage and the opportunity, put fifty thousand to five million bots in the laptop as much as you can, it will be useful in propaganda and creating top trends and will become the hands and arms of trolls.
One click and millions of bots will be in the field to roam. Trolls and bots have a significant, and often unnoticed, impact on social media.
They are employed to sway public opinion for commercial or political gain. They enable tiny, clandestine groups of people to disseminate information on a huge scale that supports their purpose.
They may have their material appear first in people’s news feeds, search results. When these trolls and bots meet, a propaganda force is formed.
A lie is fabricated overnight and by morning that lie has become a reality and is spreading from Facebook, Twitter, instagram, what’s app.
As far as it is known, it was a lie, the goal has been achieved. Now, who is going to tell that what you are reading is all a lie?
In an article, attributed towards Justice NasiraJaved (R), went viral in which she discussed how the US conspired against Imran Khan and for what purpose?
But when someone contacted Justice Nasira for verification, she denied such writings. The article, however, has reached millions, its denial may not reach thousands.
This arrangement shows that propaganda does not happen like this, it takes a lot of hard work.
Against Indian Government’s tyrannical decision of 5th August 2019, Imran Khan announced to stand for half an hour on every Friday.
It was announced to show solidarity with the oppressed kashmiris. The tweet of the late Syed Ali Gilanisurfaced, in which he praised Khan’ actions.
When Syed Ali Gilani’s spokesperson was contacted, he replied that Syed Ali Gilani did not have any social media account.
On 14th April 2022, PTI hosted an anti PDM government in Peshawar. Thousands of people attended the session.
Former Minister, Ali Mohammad Khan shared a picture of NASA and tweeted that the whole Peshawar came out for Imran.
He did not even excuse for this blatant lie. Interestingly AsadQaiser and Pervez Khattak also stepped up to share fake photo of the same meeting.
Pervez Khattack took to Twitter and captioned that this is a freedom movement, while AsadQaiser wrote that this is a revolution.
Interestingly, it was the photo of the JUI (F) gathering. The photo was shared from Facebook account of JUI (F) on April 8, 2017.
Now if this is the behavior of the leadership then imagine what will happen when the thing reaches down to Trolls and Bots?
No more performance on the ground. A little bit of post-truth, a few emotional videos, a little bit of emotion, a couple of slogans, these accessories are enough to be red-faced.
Trolls and Bots will handle the rest.The question is, what will be the fate of this society when everyone enters this field?
—The writers is Senior Lecturer at DHA Suffa University, Karachi
