Daily Times

Believe me, you have underestimated the power of social media when it comes to its influence over nation’s politics and democratic rule.

Election Commission of Pakistan has fixed July 25 as the day of general elections 2018 and no sincere work has been done by the authorities to regulate the use of social media platforms by political parties. On one hand, very few people know how social media will impact the polls and on the other, the relevant authorities are waiting for some “big bang” sort of effect on Pakistan’s democracy because of that.

About a quarter of total population of the country uses social media. We know that Cambridge Analytica – a data mining firm – has been accused of impacting United States general elections 2016.

If political parties across the world can hire such firms for boosting up their election campaigns, then there are high chances that political parties in Pakistan can use the same tools too. Cambridge Analytica has been accused of illegally acquiring data of 87 million Facebook profiles, and what it did with that information? They sold it out to those political parties and agencies who wanted to use that data and target their political ads towards the masses to influence them, so that when they go out on the day of election to cast vote, they cast it in the favour of them.

More than five hundred Twitter profiles were found during the US elections convincing Hillary’s supporters to vote online or via text message – which was not possible at all. It was all purposed to reduce the vote bank of Democrats.

Let us talk about the black markets in Pakistan where people can buy hundreds of thousands of mobile phone numbers for different purposes. If political parties will take help of such markets to get millions of phone numbers, they can even target the users across the country via text messages and calls. There is also another way of using illegally obtained phone numbers from these black markets. Social media platforms now have mobile phone numbers of their users. These platforms like Facebook and Twitter ask for mobile phone numbers so that when the user forget password or lose access to the account because of one reason or another, they can reset the password by verifying his/her phone number.

The same numbers can be used to search profiles on the platforms. This is an automatic by-default setting on these social media websites, that when user adds his/her mobile number, other users on the platform can search him/her by entering the number in search bar.

On one hand, these numbers can be used to influence citizens by sending text messages and on the other, valid Facebook and Twitter profiles can be tracked using them. We are forgetting one other use of phone numbers – WhatsApp and IMO messaging applications.

Political parties have also been found using bots on social media to amplify their campaigns. Bots are accounts on social media which are programmed to perform specific set of actions at various intervals.

For example, on Twitter, these bot accounts retweet and like certain tweets from specific accounts. Further they also follow certain accounts for which they are programmed. Same is true for Facebook. Liking, sharing and commenting on certain posts.

These accounts work 24/7. They are designed to share posts that can influence users and these bots have been programmed to add themselves in certain groups where people discuss politics and current affairs. Groups with millions of members are being targeted by political parties so that they can change minds and thinking of a large population without spending much.

Spreading fake news is common now-a-days. They can harm the image of political parties and their candidates and ultimately their vote bank.

People can engage in intentional disinformation and create fabricated stories to spread sensation and destroy public image of political candidates. People, who depend on social media platform for news, share these fabricated content and this sharing and retweeting spreads like fire from one profile to other.

Political parties also hire people who have social media pages with millions of followers and then ask them to create trolls. They create troll images to attack any political candidate’s personality and harass people and encourage polarisation.

Even in 2016, US presidential elections got affected by trolls from a Russian agency, which contributed to political debates on social media because of which supporters of the two leading political parties argued in comments section.

Election Commission of Pakistan has a very big responsibility on its shoulders i.e. to conduct free and fair elections. Elected party will rule over the country for next five years and if social media is being used by political parties to manipulate public opinion and thinking in illegal manner, then it is a high time to regulate it.

It should set a Code of Conduct, under the light of which political parties must avoid unethical and manipulative tactics to increase their vote banks. No one has right to buy phone numbers from back markets and then use them to influence citizens or to buy social media profile data from companies like Cambridge Analytica to manipulate voter’s opinion to win the elections.