THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN UGANDA – Muwado

Way back in the late 20th Century, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni of Uganda raised hope, especially among the old who had not experienced meaningful and effective democracy in the latter reign of the colonialists, and most of the post-independence when he mobilised mostly refugees and some Ugandans to wage a five-year-long bush war in the Luwero Triangle of Buganda. He made democracy and freedom the clarion call to guide his onslaught. Many young people joined his struggle, hoping that it would usher in a new sociopolitical era of democracy, freedom and opportunities. In fact, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni, soon after ousting those he called “swine,” wrote a book “The Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda”, which showed that such struggle is very costly in terms of human life and required the sacrifice and commitment of those involved in it.

Unfortunately, soon, President Tibuhaburwa Museveni started to organise his one-man system to violate the very things his struggle aimed to usher in and sustain in Uganda: freedom and democracy. The two more or less became a joint anathema to him in his committed determination to retain power at all costs. Virtually all types of freedom became threatened. One of those freedoms was the freedom to express disquiet and discontent through legal peaceful demonstrations as allowed by the very Uganda Constitution 1995 which he presided over. Another freedom was the freedom to debate public issues publicly without fear or favour. The military, which in the past was confined to the military barracks and to the duty and responsibility of guarding the country’s international borders soon occupied the police space and even took over the command of the Uganda Police Force. The aim was to ensure that the State completely controlled the movement, actions and thinking of Ugandans while the President ruled.

Meanwhile, the traditional political parties were eventually given the semblance of freedom to engage in political activities but without the opportunity to capture power from President Tibuhaburwa Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM). The political parties were used to protect the President and his NRM as receptive to political competition, yet meaningful political participation in the country by all Ugandans was detested. In fact, politics became so militarised that it became politico-military. Even the government and its institutions became greatly infested with military personnel although the President allowed civic elections and the civic practice of appointments to different positions.

One thing is true. Over the last 38 years, the Uganda population has become dominated in numbers by the youth, who have grown up under the quasi-military reign of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni. The recent National Census, held in June 2024, showed that the population is supersonically growing youthful. However, the current governance of the country has tended to marginalise the youth within the country, leaving only domestic slavery to the majority or exporting thousands into foreign slavery, particularly in the Middle East.

All effort is made to divide and rule the country, which is no doubt a country of youth who are uninterested in politics but are yearning to have life livable and various opportunities accessible but are increasingly marginalised. They do not see any freedom from disease, ignorance and poverty because these are becoming more and more the mainstay of the country despite the spiralling production of graduates in our numerous universities.

Because debating issues publicly has been almost banned in the country – even at Universities – the hopeless and hapless youth have turned to social media to seek freedom of expression, democracy and opportunities, which the powers that be can never provide even if given 100 years more to govern. Social media has not yet influenced the youth enough to cause them to bring about change. The youth organised a demonstration against the corrupt at the Parliamentary building on 23rd July 2024 as a consequence of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s declaration of war against the corrupt.

According to the youth of Uganda, they decided to demonstrate at Parliament on 23rd July 2024, ostensibly to advance the President’s struggle against corruption and the corrupt. The reason that the Speaker of Parliament admitted that she is corrupt and exhibited opulence only possible through corruption, and even declared that there is nothing wrong with people stealing public money but do share their loot with their people in the countryside. However, the President has warned his youthful supporters against the corrupt. On 22nd July he brought out full military force to occupy all political space with heavy military gear within Kampala, especially around Parliament. He earlier addressed the nation and declared that he would crush the demonstrators. He believed some politicians and foreigners were inciting the youth.

The question is: Will the youth be able to convert social media into a political weapon against corruption and use it as a democratic tool to ensure that the national cake is shared equitably and public resources are used for the benefit of the citizens of Uganda instead of being stolen by a few people in power or connected to power?

The Government of Uganda is not entirely politically sensitive to all social media. On the eve of the 2021 elections, the government temporarily blocked access to all social media platforms, even app stores, to stop downloads of VPNs. The internet was entirely shut down on election day, allegedly in the interest of national security. While the internet, social media, and access to app stores were later restored after a 28-day suspension, Facebook remains blocked indefinitely. Otherwise, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, Histogram and WhatsApp are flourishing. DataReportal’s “Digital 2024: Uganda” shows that internet and social media use was up by early 2024 as follows: 13.30 internet users and internet penetration stood at 27%; 2.60 million social media users in January 2024, which was 5.3% of the population. There were 33.34 million active cellular mobile connections in early 2024, which was 67.7% of the total population of the country. This means most of the people of Uganda are interconnected via cellular mobile phones, although 27.1% live in urban areas. 35. 95% did not use the internet

The Uganda Government has what is called the Government of Uganda Social Media Guide. It states “Due to the significant rise and uptake of social media tools in Uganda, it has become necessary to consider Social media in developing any modern, professional communications strategies, especially within Government operational domains”. Cabinet in May 2013 directed the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT) to ensure that every Government Ministry, Department and Agencies (MDAs) opens a Twitter and Facebook account to improve communication with the Public. Accordingly, the Government is committed to engaging effectively with its citizens in a meaningful, accountable, responsive and equitable way.

In the US social media platforms faced a range of controversies in recent years, including concerns over misinformation and data privacy. Even so, U.S. adults use a wide range of sites and apps, especially YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok – which some Congress members previously called to ban – saw growth in its user base, especially since 2021(Jeffrey Gottfried, 2024). Americans also use Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter (X), Reddit and BeReal.

Sneha Gubbala and Sarah Austin (2024) considered social media and democracy in a cross-section of over 125 countries around the world. They found evidence of a strong, positive correlation between Facebook penetration (a proxy for social media) and democracy. They further show that the correlation between social media and democracy is stronger for low-income countries than for high-income countries. Their lowest point estimates indicate that a one-standard deviation (about 18 percentage points) increase in Facebook penetration is associated with about 8-point (on a scale of 0–100) increase for the world sample and over 11 points improvement for low-income countries.

The term democracy’ implies the participation of people. As social media use becomes more widespread globally, people in 27 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center between 2022 and 2023 generally see it as more of a good thing than a bad thing for democracy. In 20 of these countries, in fact, majorities say social media has benefited democracy in their nation.

Andrea Doumit (2021) said that social media has been used as a political resource to impact elections, influence social movements, and serve, or harm, democracy. Ashwin (2022) wrote that social media has long been considered the fourth pillar of democracy owing to its potential to not just report what is happening around the world but to build public opinion about the ongoing issues. Media facilitates this participation (Ashwin, 2022).

As Ashwin (2022) has observed, social media has changed how people now participate in democracy. Compared to traditional media, social media has a larger reach, is easily accessible, enables mass participation and provides instant updates. These factors have led to a situation where people rely more on social media than their traditional counterparts, to become aware of their surroundings and participate in discussions – political, economic, or otherwise – which in turn strengthens democracy.

Kevin Carney (2024) said that social media groups can improve voter knowledge, but may also increase polarisation in political preferences.

Bolane Olaniran and Indi Williams (2020) write that “perceived as an equalizing force for disenfranchised individuals without a voice, the importance of social networks as agents of change cannot be ignored. However, in some societies, social networks have evolved into a platform for fake news and propaganda, empowering disruptive voices, ideologies, and messages. They add that social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google hold the potential to alter civic engagement, thus essentially hijacking democracy, by influencing individuals toward a particular way of thinking”.

Abhishek Singh (2020) is of the view that outfits such as Facebook and Twitter must be seen as publishers rather than platforms and is convinced that would be the first step to regulating them.

Acheampong and Taden (2024) write that marginal analysis revealed that the positive effect of social media on democracy is higher in countries with higher internet penetration. They suggested that with appropriate interventions, policymakers could leverage social media to enhance democratic institutions.

Some people think that the global decline in democracy is linked to social media. Some say there are no simple yes or no answers. There is, however, evidence that digital media impacts political behaviour globally. This evidence warrants concern about the adverse impacts of social media on democracy everywhere on Earth.

One writer says that Facebook, Twitter and other social media are not per se incompatible with democracy. Democratic welfare, however, requires that scientists carefully study the social effects of social media across the social strata. Those effects must be evaluated and regulated by voters and elected policymakers, not a small clique of super-rich individuals.

Ryan T. Knowles, Steven Camiciaa and Lorissa Nelsona (2023) write that social media has provided challenges and opportunities for education for democracy. There have always been structural elements of communication that are hidden and perpetuate inequalities. Social media has accelerated and empowered these hidden structures through algorithms. In their argumentative essay, they examine how critical media literacy can uncover hidden power structures and support education for democracy. Besides, critical media literacy can help students identify exclusionary, inaccurate, missing, and polarizing elements of social media while examining and discussing issues and events. Seen through this lens, social media provides opportunities for education for democracy. On the other hand, they write that critical media literacy and education for democracy provide opportunities for increasing civic engagement and renewal.

Even if social media has frequently been misused by the politically underdeveloped and politically illiterate -an antithesis of democratic development and political literacy – there is no doubt that social media have positive implications, especially for the youth who are the main users and beneficiaries of these media. We are currently witnessing how the youth in Kenya and Bangladesh are using social media to push their own sociopolitical agenda apart from political parties and opposition leaders in the two countries. One beneficial aspect of social media is its ability to spark outrage and incite change within the people, affecting the democratic state of a country as is currently happening in the East African nation of Kenya. When this happens, traditional politics does not come in. Nor does one need to evoke foreigners as the cause. However, the spread of misinformation is a digital crisis as the misinformation spreads quickly and widely. The powers that be must be well equipped to confront this not by guns but by brains to correct the impression created by misinformation.

The youth gain greatly in political development and political literacy and in the art and science of discussing complex issues if they interact via social media with older people who participated in public discourses via debate in the past. If such people allow healthy debate and guide the youth in the art and science of discussion the ultimate is beneficial not only for the youth but the country in the processes of political and democratic development and in the proliferation of political literacy. This is particularly the case where the sociopolitical environment is restrictive.

Unfortunately, where politicians are trying to undo each other for political gain, social media are being used to manipulate the public political choices of the citizens. This has a detrimental effect on political and democratic development and the political literacy of the people and even those in positions of leadership.

As Ashwin (2022) has written the advent of social media has taken democracy a step further by facilitating public discussions on important issues, whether political, religious, social or economic; providing a greater reach to election campaigning with minimal time and resources; ensuring that the grievances of individuals [or groups of individuals] reach the concerned authorities in time; and facilitating and accelerating political revolutions in countries. The latter is the consequence of rising and proliferating political development, democratic development and political literacy especially the youth who have everything to gain and nothing to lose in the process. However, imposed fear is the greatest impediment to political, democratic and literacy transition in the 21st century if the fear factor can be conquered.

There are many stakeholders in social media, apart from the youth, who are concerned about corruption, injustice and the erosion of freedom, democracy and various rights in Uganda. These include the broad civil society, intellectuals, professionals, academics, researchers and policymakers, to name but a few. However, the majority of these stakeholders have not taken to using social media to pursue their rights or to contribute to the political and democratic development of Uganda.

For Kenya, social media continues to be used to sow the seeds of democracy and to unite the different stakeholders in the struggle for different freedoms, justice and equity and against corruption. It is likely, however, that future confrontations between the powers that be and the people of Uganda will be between the youth and the State starting 23rd July 2024. Will the struggle by the youth against corruption and for democracy, human rights and justice end with a confrontation between them and the powers that be on 23rd July 2024 when they converge, as planned, at the Parliament of Uganda? Well, time, the ultimate judge, will tell. The government has armed itself to the teeth to confront the country’s youth. If the youth continue to respect fear, it is unlikely such a confrontation will occur. However, most writers say that social media has been good for democracy and has had important positive and negative effects on politics and society as a whole.

We are yet to see to what extent social media influences democracy, politics and society in Kenya positively or negatively. In Uganda, we have to wait a little longer, but social media has taken over the influence of political parties and the formal print and electric media on many issues in the country. As Kalemera (2011) observed long ago most African governments have not taken significant steps towards making the use of social media and networks within administrations official and widespread. In fact, the policy environment remains unconducive with most government Internet-related regulations aimed at protecting political interests at the expense of enabling citizen participation…

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