Bhutan: Update on Social Media and Anonymity

The last few months, as I said earlier, have been very interesting on the social media front.

Given my outspoken/opinionated nature and coming from a very, very small society (Bhutan's population is .5 million and of that only a very small percentage is on twitter and about 70,000 on Facebook) it has made it even more interesting and difficult.

For one, because I am a stay at home mother who has the time to tweet, I do. Hence I wonder how in the world all these anonymous tweeters who claim they are working for the government and are afraid to speak up under their own ID's find the time to tweet to glory at the government and tax-payers expense! Now you can judge why nothing moves in the Bhutanese government. Many are busy airing their political grievances or engaging in mindless gossip instead of doing their work. Others, I am sure, don't work in the government, don't have jobs (like me) or have never held a steady job in their lives. And not to generalize or say it is wrong, there are some (probably govt workers too) on Twitter who are making/bringing meaningful information to the people through this forum. And even if they are not, I am not saying it is not ok to criticize the govt. There is nothing wrong with that. But like it or not, there is an etiquette even in doing so, and while there are no written laws for what you can and cannot say on social media, there is an unwritten one - there is no room for instigating hatred, racism, misogyny etc. Even in the height of Bush bashing in the US, you never saw anyone personally attacking his wife or children (only until of course they did something wrong; like one of them tried to get into a bar on a fake ID or something like that.  Same goes for Obama, his wife and children are off limits. Tells you how much we have yet to learn on social etiquette no matter on or offline!)

I was attacked before when I called on this, and even last week. But last week, however, it got very personal when one tweeter dragged in his/her living room gossip hoping to crucify me. I hate myself for it, but I did take the bait once again to get sucked into it.

But these very negative developments on twitter have been noticed and happening not only in Bhutan but also around the world. London, during the Olympics, experienced/saw such ugly cyber-bullying on twitter that tougher laws on monitoring these sites were suggested.

In India, things went to an extreme when 40 people were killed and as good as 400,000 were displaced as a result of ethnic fighting which authorities said were sparked by instigations and inciting from Facebook, Twitter, Texts and YouTube. According to some, the fear and hate mongering instigations were based on false information and doctored videos posted online by people belonging to hate groups. 

The Indian government, amidst much criticism, cracked down on these sites as rogues had taken to using this otherwise wonderful tool to unleash such hate and destruction. It is unfortunate to see what can happen when people who use this tool/internet to connect to the world and enhance their knowledge of it, have to suffer as a result of the misuse of some. It was good that sites like Facebook and search engines like Google cooperated with the Indian govt to remove the content and bring perpetrators to justice, but Twitter, it seems, did not cooperate.

The situation in Bhutan's own Cyberworld hasn't been as bad fortunately, but we have seen the beginnings of it. Apart from my own posts 2 papers, Kuensel and Business Bhutan, came out with good analytical pieces on what is happening on that front. 

It seems many have been taking cue from the international so called "hacktivist" group called Anonymous to think they are "fighting" for a "cause". But while the group Anonymous has done good work in advocating Wikileaks and fighting the US govt on the internet freedoms front, it must be remembered that it also resorts to "illegal" means to do this. And thinking that they are emulating such bravado as that group, some Bhutanese tweeters have taken every liberty to misuse being "Anonymous." 

This is a great and V interesting piece (must read) about one of the founding members of Anonymous, who eventually turned around and went to work with the FBI. It tells you a great deal of his background, how it came about and that without laws, the internet can be a very dangerous place and people have to/should be more responsible. 

People in Bhutan should remember that we are a "unique" society. Not because of GNH, but because we are a "small" society where everyone knows everyone. We are also a society that has not (at least up until now) seen the horrible things that happen in other societies, happen in ours. Understood that ours is not a perfect one either and that there is always room for improvement. We can all contribute to that through reasonable and sound discourse rather than making personal attacks on people. Agreeing to disagree; respecting that others have a different point of view is something we need to respect - well that would indeed be a wish come true ;) I guess, even in the virtual world there is no ideal society like we claim/dupe ourselves into thinking we have in the real one ;)