IT is actually an uphill battle, this fight to bring some sanity into social media, one that has effectively been commandeered by noisy partisans, some of whom have even profited from their monetized accounts. We cannot allow social media to be simply providing us the limited options of either being inhabited by apolitical individuals gleefully posting their vacation reels and food porn Instagram moments, or by extremely blinded political netizens lost in their idolatry of political personalities whom they have elevated to become demigods. Consequently, the latter would excrete internet bile and fill cyberspace with toxicity aimed at those who dare criticize their idols. These are the people who until now cannot move on from the 2022 elections, except that now the vitriol appears no longer between the pinks and the Marcos supporters. Now, it is happening between the Marcos loyalists and some diehard Duterte supporters, both coming from a cohort who are actually former allies.Indeed, revolutions tend to devour their own children, except that in this case, success in elections led to former allies now devouring each other.There is a wide chasm and a deep void that is present because voices of moderation and reason abdicate the opportunity to populate a space that can provide contrapuntal voices to extreme apoliticism and blind idolatry. Many are complaining about social media being dominated by disinformation and lies, and yet we have allowed partisan fact-checkers masquerading as neutral media, or academics who are outrightly partisan but pretending to be scientific to have a near-monopoly of the fact-checking enterprise. It is obvious that their fact-checking is very much centered on negating the voices of Marcos, Duterte and their allied brands. Their credibility went down the hill the moment they decided to focus on their usual convenient narratives and tropes, but ignore the disinformation and lies being peddled by those whom they apparently have fraternized with and with whom they share a space under their political tent.What we need are rational, dispassionate and non-partisan voices in social media. There is much to be understood about so many issues that we face in our country, from climate change to food security, to the pandemic and the economy. What we need are interventions that provide an empirical grounding to political contestations, where evidence and data become the life blood, instead of political vitriol and the desire to diss the opposing party.We need to popularize discourses that in their natural form are inaccessible to the ordinary and the everyday. Yes, indeed we already have people who interrupt the insanity and audacity of those who revel in their Googled expertise and epistemic trespassing. There are also those who post rational explanations to otherwise difficult technical topics. Yet sadly, they often post in ways that only reinforce the inaccessibility of the topics, since they post in English using technical jargon. This is a challenge to most academics, and it's about time that having the skill to popularize scientific and technical material should now be the subject of a required course in college, or in graduate school. It's about time that experts in academe appreciate the fact that while traditionally their mode of communication is through peer-reviewed academic journals and in conferences, the new scientific enterprise demands from them the ability to communicate in diverse modes, from Facebook and Twitter microblogging to YouTube vlogging to TikTok.It is not enough for scientists and academics, and their institutions, to have social media accounts. What matters most is the form through which they communicate. An academic website or a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account will remain alien territory if what is posted is academic jargon.The challenge to academics is to popularize their disciplines, and to use this as a vehicle in mainstreaming opinions that are relatable and understandable, and if possible, expressed in creative ways but based on evidence and empirical data. The long-term impact of mainstreaming a culture where providing scientific support for opinions is the norm cannot be underestimated. But before such culture can be established and nurtured, the academic should first learn how to communicate simply and creatively.Many academics would be hesitant to inhabit social media for fear of being trolled, more so that the partisan spinners and enablers indeed have become experts in character assassination and smearing. I have come to learn how to deal with them. It is not easy, but the talent can be acquired. If academics can survive the criticisms of their dissertation committees, or the blind reviews of peers, enduring jeers from blind loyalists and diehard partisans would be easy.Another key challenge is that in order for academics to have credibility, they must begin to unlearn their partisan political biases, and while they are not asked to abandon their political stance on things, they must be able to really become the scientists that they claim to be. That is, that they are able to subordinate their biases and suspend their politics, and be objective and non-partisan.This is actually where many academics who are also active in social media miserably fail. Instead of being voices of reasonable and dispassionate analysis, and living up to the demands of the scientific work ethic of basing opinions on data, they become peddlers of partisan disinformation. Worse, they acquire a troll-like behavior, and join the fray as part of an online lynch mob. It is tragic when the object of their attacks are not just political personalities, but even fellow academics with whom they disagree. Thus, what could otherwise be a healthy academic disagreement, which happens and is but natural, and where the linchpin are counter-evidence, alternative theories and models, and contravening perspectives and paradigms, now descends into name-calling and personal attacks.I have experienced all of these. Just because I had a different political opinion from them, I became the target of an online vilification campaign launched not only by students but enabled by my peers. It is hard, but if I have survived them all, so can others.
