Our Netizen Democracy

Vinzen Josh L. Borja | IV-A

While a killer virus grounds our physical world to a halt, our digital world on the other
hand, lives on. And as we grab the chance to take nearly every aspect of our life online, one thing
is clear; we can’t just take everything with us—especially our democracy.

To understand why, we need to look closer at just how much technology itself has
changed the way we do things. In the more positive sense, technology has afforded us incredible
opportunities; from giving us more jobs, keeping us connected, providing us with information,
and whatnot. In fact, the technology of the Internet alone is already responsible for much of those
benefits and conveniences. But all this advantage comes at a cost—and whether we like it or not,
our democracy is bearing the brunt of it.

The absolute ingenuity of the Internet keeps us so astonished at just how much we can
do, that we start turning a blind eye and forget the things we shouldn’t do. Like how only now,
during a global health crisis, do we finally realize the importance of credible information, or free
speech—when all along in the past, we stood silent when people and entire governments used the
Internet against these very ideals. It is absolutely hypocritical for us to even call ourselves
“netizens” when we can’t even be good, responsible “citizens” to begin with.

Where were we all when Internet hackers and trolls peddled fake news and social media
propaganda during the 2016 Presidential elections? Or during the elections in 2019? Where were
we when Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg were actively allowing misleading political ads in
exchange for profits? Or when Cambridge Analytica leaked thousands of personal, private voter
data to Russian bots during the election of Donald Trump? Slowly it becomes clearer that these
were not just simply isolated cases of fraud and injustice but a systematic pattern of corruption
by using the Internet to rig and destroy our democracy.

Now, while a virus pandemic sweeps across our borders, brewing online in our digital
world is a much bigger pandemic of misinformation and fake news. This moment is our chance
to redeem ourselves by calling out the blatant lies and by reporting malicious sites—one by one
and little by little—doing whatever it takes to make our Internet a safe and vibrant place for
democracy once again.