By Memuna Forna
Social media giant Facebook recently cemented its relationship with Africa by opening its first African headquarters in South Africa. This, in conjunction with its efforts to extend free Internet access to more African countries and the launch of the Facebook lite app for lower-end phones, indicates the company has big plans for our continent.
Sierra Leone’s internet users are already in love with Facebook. Of our 97,643 recorded internet users, just over 80% are Facebook subscribers. WhatsApp users are also a significant group, as evidenced by BBC Media Action Sierra Leone which reported that its WhatsApp channel had over 12,000 members.
Social media or microblogging platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp don’t just keep family and friends connected. Their versatility and the ingenuity of their users have the potential to revolutionise the prospects of emerging economies such as ours, opening up an almost infinite range of possibilities - business, research, communication, educational, health, and of course - political.
The social media’s political credentials are already well-established. In Arab countries, social networking played a critical role in the Arab Spring, with many activists using it to organise protests, demand change and express their thoughts concerning their governments.
In Sierra Leone, social media has sidestepped the mistrust, political bias and vested interests of much of the traditional media, to become the people’s political megaphone of choice. As a passionate advocate of free speech and the media’s role in holding our politicians to account, I am all for the opportunity provided by social media in Sierra Leone to quickly disseminate and discuss information while bypassing government restrictions. Emerging democracies such as ours are messy, complex, and uncertain, and as 2018 looms - when the country goes to the poll - we need the flexibility and freedom of debate that social media allows.
They are powerful tools, which also have their dark side as exemplified recently by the naked photographs purported to be those of the vice president, Victor Foh leaked on Facebook and WhatsApp. It was ‘revenge porn’ at its most gratuitous. At the time many of us probably reacted with amusement; or were dismissive about the carelessness of an elderly man photographed in a compromising position? The latter was my initial response. It is one I now regret because there are several very good reasons why we should all care about the use of revenge porn.
The first is that revenge porn can cause severe and in many cases, irremediable harm. The resultant violation of sexual privacy, loss of employment or educational opportunities, and psychological trauma mean that in many countries ‘revenge porn’ has been made a crime. For example, this year the UK’s first law on revenge porn came into force. It means that anyone who shares naked images or videos of somebody without their consent could be jailed for up to two years.
The word ‘revenge’ suggests that it is an act motivated by an ex-lover’s extreme emotion. In truth, it is more usually a particularly unpleasant form of sexual abuse which is overwhelmingly targeted at women, who make up more than 95 percent of reported victims internationally. In Sierra Leone where sexism, cultural misogyny and women’s vulnerability are rife in other areas, it is fairly safe to assume that women will get the raw end of the deal in this area too. In the past it has happened that female victims have had legal as well as moral condemnation heaped upon them. Ugandan singer, Desire Luzinda is a case in point. When naked photos of her were leaked onto the internet, it was her morality and not the perpetrator’s that was called into question, with the Ugandan Ethics and Integrity minister calling for her arrest.
Calling it ‘revenge porn’ obscures two other major motivations – money and politics. In Sierra Leone’s overwhelmingly commodified economy, it is not unusual to find the intention behind the release of such images is blackmail rather than revenge. More worrying is the use of revenge porn to gain political capital. The supposed images of Victor Foh appear to be part of a campaign intended to diminish him professionally and politically at a time when the constitutional legalities of his appointment are in question and the elections are not too far away.
When we reduce our political debate to this level, we become side-tracked from the discourse around political policy, performance and governance that we should be having. Victor Foh without his pants, or any other man in his position or that matter, is not important; but the constitutional debate that has made him newsworthy definitely is. Furthermore by politicising the private lives of our politicians, we tacitly validate the inclusion of a range of other political irrelevancies such as tribe, religion and gender. It is no accident that several Sierra Leonean WhatsApp discussion groups also circulate tribalist jokes or cartoons.
Our embryonic democracy will have a myriad of challenges before it matures into one that can be described as human-centred and consultative. The social media has yet to cause a power shift in Sierra Leonean politics, but its influence is growing. In the run up to our next elections, our 80,000 Facebook users, who surely represent the most advantaged in our society, have a duty to work together to create a forum that can expose ills in government and society and offer concrete options on the way forward, instead of circulating revenge porn and tribalist jokes.
(C) Politico 14/08/15
