Recall the famous call of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa to “take back the Internet” (or something to that effect) more than a year ago. It was a call dripping in self-righteous pomposity which my colleague ChinoF wrote about…
One of the country’s prominent mainstream media personalities in this country posted, “Time to Take back the Internet. Time to take back social media.” Fancy words. “Take back” is often used in posts and calls to move people to action. Our very own Ilda has an article using it.
However, I believe this use of “take back” by the mainstream media personality was misplaced. You cannot take back the Internet and social media. Because you cannot take back what you don’t own.
Indeed, I believe the media personality’s perceived opponent for the “take back” post was citizen journalism. However, the new media cannot be “taken back” from citizen journalism because it’s one check and balance for a “fourth estate” that’s gone rogue.
It mirrors a disturbing attitude in the mainstream; an unwillingness to compete in what has become a Darwinian landscape where the battle for ideological dominance has become even more intense thanks to the Internet and social media. For the longest time, Ressa and her henchgirls in Rappler gushed about the Net like it was the greatest invention since sliced bread. But rather than embrace its real utility as a means to gain access to a vast diversity of ideas, Ressa and her wider circle of “disente” cliques cocooned themselves in echo chambers and exchanged increasingly inbred ideas amongst themselves. They blocked people who they perceived to be opposed to their “decent” views on how society ought to be and followed and kept track of like-minded people who shared their views. The result of just a few years of this digital inbreeding is not surprising…
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The Philippines’ so-called “civil society”, now a.k.a. the “disente” crowd have made themselves obsolete thanks to their habitual refusal to engage non-traditional media entities like Mocha Uson. They are paying for that arrogance today. To the chagrin of pompous “thought leaders” like Maria Ressa and Chay Hofilena, the Internet has been “taken” from them. The landscape of guerrilla bloggers, meme creators, Facebook “chuwariwaps” who are dismissed collectively as “trolls” by the traditional Establishment have taken over the Internet from right under the noses of the Old Guard.
The “trolls” relish a fight. The latte-fattened “disente” crowd retreat from it. So it is no surprise who wins the war for Internet turf. There’s a history lesson in there somewhere — something about barbarians and gates and the collapse of a big Mediterranean empire.
Social media ‘serial blockers’ like former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay have reduced the Philippine Opposition’s capability to compete in the social media jungle.
As we can see from all the text above quoted from the dustiest recesses of our vast archive of old articles, we at Get Real Philippines had called this way way before Ressa and any other “social media expert” had the slightest idea that it was already happening. We have watched and waited patiently for a long time for Ressa and her generals to make good on her campaign to “take back the Internet”. Alas, after the last morsel of popcorn had been munched, all we are seeing today is a tired weather-beaten CEO of a fallen media unicorn throwing a monumental tantrum and blaming God himself (in this case, Mark Zuckerberg himself) for her epic failure as a media baron.
Facebook needs to moderate its greed, clean up the toxic waste, and be accountable for its role as the new gatekeeper to information.
Spoken by Maria Ressa, Rappler CEO. Spoken like a true loser.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Trying to take back what isn’t hers, that’s the richest thing in it. Also, she might as well blame Tim Berners-Lee for helping create something that lets people bypass gate keepers in communicating with each other over distances and numbers.
Sometimes I even wonder if she’s trying to take back the telephone and postal system, since those are other ways people communicate without going through news agencies. hehe
At first the attack was directly to Duterte, then his family, then to the Pro Duterte bloggers, now the social media specificallyFacebook. What’s next? My guess is the creators of computer/smart phones that enable Dutertards to access Facebook. Ressa, like Trillanes is like a member of drug cartel expected to deliver the goods, and if failed will be sent to the afterlife with a bullet hole in her forehead.
The internet was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, to enable U.S. government offices, especially the U.S. Department of Defense, to be able to communicate with each other, in the event of Nuclear War with the former Soviet Union, and other countries, that have nuclear capabilities. When it went to public use; it became the World Wide Web (WWW). Then, it branched into social media, like; emails, blogging, You Tube, FaceBook, etc..
Blogging allowed Citizen Journalists, to have a say in any situation and condition of how they are governed.
To take back the internet, that runs thru : HyperSpace ot CyberSpace. You have to understand first its technology. Otherwise, you are just punching against the wind !
Is she taking pointers from Hillary Clinton? because she blamed everyone but herself for her failures, talk about persecution complex.
Thank God i found this article. What made me tick off yesterday is when i saw msnbc report on Facebook and saw the face of Maria Ressa.
You have already lost if you are always fearful of losing everything.