F**cked by Facebook - why politicians must become digitally literate

Politicians must come up to speed with netiquette and become more digitally literate, or else they have to face the consequences of their embarrassing Facebook comments, if not a compromised career.

Where's the unlike button when you need it?
Where's the unlike button when you need it?

Social networking and the phenomenal importance that Facebook is playing in the online ecosystem of small Malta is creating a good deal of havoc.

It is now a veritable playground of wired bullies, trollers, geeks, and voyeurs where the conflagration of private viewpoints being foisted upon a willing public is leading to embarrassing situations for some.

First it was the rotund One TV presenter Joe Grima, the former Labour minister who resigned his television spot after telling a Catholic priest to "fuck off" for penning an unflattering obituary of Dom Mintoff. Then the Nationalist Party demanded the head of Labour's equal opportunities officer Rachel Tua for posting a spoof of Lawrence Gonzi decked out in Gaddafi's military regalia. And, most recent of all, an online boycott of an Italian restaurateur's eatery in Xemxija for his over-zealous panning of the Maltese during the Italy-Malta match.

When did posting on Facebook become such a dangerous game? Does everyone have to face some ethical question in judging whether what we say, post and share on Facebook is moral or not, or whether it is unfair? And yet all this takes place on a medium which is the ultimate expression of freedom itself, where all notions of courtesy and etiquette no longer have any value. There's no simple 'fair use' definition.

So as politicians and public persons are recognising the importance of social media engagement, they find themselves having to make a qualitative difference between what they say - and if what they say represents their public persona, or their private views. A hard, if not schizophrenic, way of acting on Facebook.

Tua's actions can easily be compared to former British Labour MP Tom Harris's creation of a spoof video on his popular blog, comparing Adolf Hitler's final days with Alex Salmond's machinations over the referendum on Scottish independence. Harris was forced to resign as the Labour Party's new media advisor earlier this year.

Generational disconnect

Carmen Sammut, a media academic at the University of Malta, and who also is chairperson of Labour's think-tank Ideat, says that media ethics have slipped the grasp of the professionals who formed part of the media mainstream, which came armed with codes of ethics and self-regulatory structures.

Social media, Sammut says, has changed what the media previously controlled and what the political parties previously put out on their own and other independent media agendas - even squeezing out the time necessary for politicians' brains to truly process what they were about to say.

"The internet and particularly Facebook, have become a resource for journalists and a channel for rebels within party or State structures. Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando's use of Facebook and Franco Debono's blog are a case in point. As a result they present a headache for those who strive to keep parties 'own message'," Sammut says.

"However, if parties were to set guidelines, how are they going to enforce them? One can monitor all press releases at party headquarters, but cannot control what politicians may state online from the privacy of their own homes."

A case in point was the Directorate for Educational Services's recent circular to teachers in State schools, advising them on the appropriate use of social networking sites. Certainly there is no form of control on teachers, but at least they are warned of the implications of the way they use social media when their own students could be watching.

The Nationalist Party's communications director Frank Psaila disagrees that guidelines can curb careless talk on Facebook.

"The issue isn't about guidelines but a good sense of judgment as is expected from party officials. Tua is a high-ranking official, Muscat's 'Equal Opportunities Officer'. Nut, sharing, recommending, and liking a picture depicting Prime Minister Gonzi as Muammar Gaddafi makes her unfit for a post which should be all about reaching out to people, and treating them on an equal basis.

"Her behaviour was shallow, and her picture tasteless. The PN expects its officials to behave in an altogether different manner from Tua - and if they don't, the PN does not praise or encourage their behaviour, as Muscat did with his privileged party official."

Psaila's Labour counterpart however accuses the PN of hypocrisy, naming similar Facebook faux-pas committed by Gonzi's nephew Alexis Callus, a Safi councillor, and another PN activitst for posting offensive comments when Dom Mintoff pass away. "Labour believes it shouldn't restrict its members in the way they approach social online media with regards to prudence," Kurt Farrugia says.

"Instead of using guidelines the PL organizes in-house seminars on how to best use politics in the social media sphere, while also educating our members with the best practices."

Indeed the problem, as digital strategist Alex Grech says, is a lack of understanding of the basics of digital literacy: how to process online information, how to express oneself on social media, and how to manage your public persona.

"Those of a certain age, the so-called 'digital migrants', are at best suspicious of the medium, or hark for some form of draconian regulation of discourse on the internet," Grech says of the 'generational disconnect' when it comes to netiquette.

"The younger digital natives cannot quite figure what the fuss is all about since the social web is simply their 'social voice', so the barriers between what is kept private offline and made public online are very permeable."

Grech says he is not surprised that some people in public positions have difficulty communicating through the social web.

"These individuals have been brought up using different communication mediums - mass media, one-way broadcast, even proprietary partisan media systems where the recipient rarely has recourse to a right of reply with newspapers used as political billboards by politicians.

"All that changed with the mass take-up of social media and our own local blend of commentary on newspaper portals. Suddenly, everyone's opinion matters, at least for the 15 seconds someone else may spend reading it."

Because posterity is also another concept that seems to have little import on politicians' behaviour on Facebook, which like other social networks, makes money for shareholders by building detailed profiles (or social graphs) of their users.

"We provide that data all the time - from our messages to our 'likes' on Facebook and re-tweets on Twitter to our browser history - so one must start from the premise that the content we develop online is there for public consumption: the assumption that we are interacting with a network of trusted individuals in some sort of private enclave is at best naïve," Grech says, in a reminder that all we do and say on Facebook is actually digitally engraved in some server.

It's all about a social bargain, Grech adds: Facebook's free, but what we do on it actually benefits those who own Facebook.

"Eventually it is all going to have to come down to learning about the way the tools operate, and how to make personal judgements on what to share and what to keep private," Grech says.

Digital literacy: seriously needed

Carmen Sammut sends out a warning to politicians and the risks they face when not taking what they do on Facebook seriously.

"Politicians need to realise social media should never be taken lightly as it carries the power to amplify one's message, or seriously damage their career. Parties can play a vital role in this regard by 'educating' their exponents on how they may benefit from the social media," Sammut says.

As Grech notes, Facebook and blogs still appear to be uncharted territory for politicians: "Politicians have still got to get round to the idea that the social web is not particularly kind to those engaged in building their brand on the basis of ego or clientelism, for instance."

Sammut also notes that politicians deluding themselves that adding thousands of 'friends' on Facebook could win them elections, might end up on the losing end due to a lethal cocktail of "ignorance and are reluctance to learn".

"Politicians must understand that their online comments and online behaviour will haunt them forever. Venting one's anger online may backfire. Hasty comments made before they even gather all the facts and consulting informed opinion may boomerang."

As in the Tua case, even when ubiquitous 'Like' is no longer a valuable endorsement, statuses, shares and likes can be used by opponents (from the other party or same-party district rivals). Instantaneous Facebook means few people mince their words. "As a result, more than opening to other perspectives, social media may actually exacerbate polarisation," Sammut warns.

On his part, Grech says that a solution to the digital gaffes will mean the need to have digital literacies included in our education curriculae.

"In the same way that we all learn to read and write in our early years while in the meantime, people will continue to mistake the social web for their personal, private communication system.

"Local legislators will update their press laws to try and provide some level of recourse and at worst, we can look forward to some entertaining gaffes from those who are not used to having their discourse challenged by someone with a keyboard."

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".........the PN does not praise or encourage their behaviour, as Muscat did with his privileged party official."..... what tripe, DCG is not a party official but she is even higher than that cause she is one of the electoral campaign team together with Saliba, Gatt and RCC. She has been entrusted with dung throwing which is her favourite pastime.