The Power of the Index Finger

Right now, I’m enjoying a local page set up on Facebook called 'Mojácar: Rincón de Embrujo' which shows old photographs of people and relics from the village in Spain I’ve called ‘home’ for half a century. These pictures often connect, or make me smile, or help me remember those who have died and sometimes disappeared from my thoughts.

Mostly these days Facebook is about politics (‘viewpoints’) and increasingly hostile to other opinions. The days of goofy kittens and dogs that catch a Frisbee seem to have moved on to attacks against political groups (in preference to celebrations of one’s own favoured party or leader), obscure petitions (‘only another 641 signatures needed’) and improbable cures.

Whatsapp appears to have been appropriated by those who spend all day sending out bulos, the fake news that is designed to make us indignant.

In Spain, it’s usually about Podemos, of course.

Small and obscure positions are often featured on social media (I’m too old to even quite know what Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and so on are) and, with enough punch, they can soon grow to become trending, that’s to say, to attract more attention than they are worth. Take the chauffeur-driven chap in his open car, Spanish flag and loudhailer who briefly toured a couple of streets in the smartest area of Madrid, the Barrio Salamanca, calling for the government to fall. A silly story that started out on YouTube and Facebook which soon went viral – precisely because all who saw it, clicked a ‘like’ or an ‘angry’ and then shared it with their followers.

Another one (maybe a mistake, maybe a fake) comes from El País in English and its translation of Pablo Casado as 'Pablo Married'. C’mon, how can you not pass a thing like that around?

In certain instances, the social media has probably brought about fundamental shifts. Donald Trump (the Twitter-king) would never have become the Republican candidate without the barrage of comments and posts from the Keyboard Warriors of America, making an obscure candidate mainstream (‘About one-in-five adult Twitter users in the U.S. follow Trump’ says The Pew Research Centre here).

As eldiario.es says here, the anti-vaccinators are another example: an obscure, silly and improbable idea that is suddenly pushed to the front by endless visibility posted by those who, typically, have no training in science whatsoever. Down with Bill Gates (who, apparently, wants to vaccinate us and turn us into slaves for some unknown reason)!

A study in Nature says ‘Groups opposing vaccines are small in size, but their online-communications strategy is worryingly effective and far-reaching…’.

We’ve seen posts and videos that claim that the coronavirus is an artifice of the, uh, New Order, who are going to turn us all into something terrible (terrible, I tells ya). There’s not much on Google, besides a pop group of the same name, but then there’s Trump’s nemesis, the Deep State, so maybe they mean that.

Here’s the Kremlin’s sinister hand (apparently):  ‘Secret Labs and George Soros: COVID-19 Disinformation in the EU Eastern Partnership Countries’.

Another time, we can look at UFOs, fairies and the Matrix.

Maybe I’ll post something on Facebook about them later.

It could go viral.