While our online lives are undoubtedly filled with banalities, social media have also become platforms for national debate about everything from politics to morality.
While our online lives are undoubtedly filled with banalities, social media have also become platforms for national debate about everything from politics to morality.
You know what I’m talking about: we all have ‘that liberal friend’. We scroll bemusedly past posts from our favourite conspiracy nut, and some of us know enough eco-warriors to start some kind of angry green army!
But social media have become more than just a soapbox for the all the world’s microcosmic orators. They seem to have become an arena for spirited national debate and the negotiation of our collective values, ideals and beliefs.
On Thursday 5 September, 23-year-old Sanele Goodness May lost control of the 18-wheel truck he was driving, which hurtled down the M13 and wiped out four taxis and a car in Pinetown, KZN.
Now, thousands are taking to social media after it was reported that May faces 22 counts of murder following the accident. Users have made petitions, penned earnest manifestos about the responsibilities of May’s employers, and bemoaned a legal system that just wanted to ‘make an example’ of the truck driver.
The court of public opinion has made up its mind: the Avaaz.com petition titled ‘To save an innocent man from facing 22 counts of murder’ had already garnered 14 000 signatures by the time of writing.
What about cases with fewer variables?
A jeweller in France is enjoying massive online support after shooting a fleeing robber in the back who had held him up.
While the law is clear about the issue of killing in self-defence (the jeweller, Stephan Turk, has been charged with voluntary manslaughter), 1.54 million people and counting disagree, feeling that he was completely justified in his actions.
Leader of far-right French party the National Front, Marine Le Pen, called the incident “a sign that [people]no longer have any confidence in the state or the forces of order”.
Close to home, Facebook commenters have come out strongly against the suspects in the vicious rape and murder of a Vukani woman, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated. This is clearly at odds with the South African legal system and the ruling party’s feelings on the matter.
But it seems as though social media have become the modern-day equivalent of the ancient Greek agora, a forum where citizens could debate issues of national (and often, global) importance and have their voices heard.
More and more people are taking their cases to this court of public opinion for redress, and this is being fuelled by a growing sense of disillusionment with the traditional legal system.
How appropriate is this alternative system of justice?
On the one hand, it can be a good thing: it’s important for a country’s government and legal system to adapt to the society they’re meant to serve.
But on the other hand, it’s clear to anyone who spends a few minutes on the internet that arguments there do not often follow the guidelines for what would be considered reasoned, rational, impartial and fact-driven debate.
There, emotional appeals and sensation fuel shocked, knee-jerk reactions that may or may not be an accurate reflection of justice and fairness.
I wouldn’t call much of what goes on there ‘justice’, but it can be an important space where previously unchallenged powers can be taken to task and a society can go about drawing and redrawing its moral and legal boundaries.
I think we have a lot to tweet about.
