Hey guys! It is the social media age. Practically everyone with a smart phone is now a writer and everyone is a publisher. Before now, there was one very important guy between the writer and the publisher. He was king of the newsroom. He was called ‘Editor’. His job was to make sure that everything the public reads is factual. Every great newspaper was built on its credibility. It was the job of the editor to ask the critical questions: What? Who? Where? How? Why? I used to consider editors the most powerful men and women in the world.
That day is gone. Very few people these days get their news from any newspaper. Very few watch TV, except they are watching BB Naija, Telemundo, Zee World, African Magic or Premier League. People do not even talk anymore. They ‘chat’. Everyone is on WhatsApp, the “wicked” app owned by Mark Zuckerberg who also owns Facebook and Instagram.
Twenty-four hours a day, news, photos, videos, gospel, lies, sex and mischief continue to stream in on WhatsApp. If you are not careful, you get hooked, swallow it all and suffer the constipation.
On WhatsApp now, there is a platform for your village, your town, your old school mates, your church group, your colleagues at work, your drinking partners, your philandering group, the pepper-soup joint you belong to, etc. Every day, you must check all the platforms. It is never ending. People are begging you for money on WhatsApp… people are toasting you on WhatsApp!
In this highly charged political season in Nigeria, WhatsApp is the place to go to find out what the “OBidient” movement is up to. There are a thousand and one groups on WhatsApp firing like mad and working themselves to a frenzy to make Peter Obi President. The bullion van political parties who until recently mocked Peter Obi for being a mere social media wonder have also been bitten by the bug. They have woken from their slumber. They are all now hurriedly setting up their WhatsApp groups.
WhatsApp, the free messaging and video calling app is a leveler. It is the app you turn to every morning before anything else. It is said to be used by over two billion people in more than 180 countries. The users include students and their teachers, nurses and doctors, plumbers, vulcanizers, market women, taxi drivers, lawyers, pastors, choir girls and choir masters; prostitutes and their customers; politicians and voters et al. WhatsApp is so simple that anybody can use it. It is reliable, cheap and private, so you can easily keep in touch with anybody. WhatsApp works across mobile and desktop even on slow connections, with no subscription fees.
The incredible thing about WhatsApp is that it knows no boundaries. You can be reached on your very same number anywhere on earth at practically no cost. When you call or are called on WhatsApp, nobody knows where you are. Yahoo boys love it! Your personal messages and calls to anyone on WhatsApp are said to be end-to-end encrypted. In other words, no one outside of your chats, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to your jive. So, you can gossip as much as you want. You can tell as many lies as you want and curse anybody as much as you like and be as raunchy and naked as you ever dreamed of on WhatsApp. Old boy, no fear, the world will continue to rock on! What of the famous WhatsApp video calls? Hmmmm! You can see everything and practically do everything and its no one’s business. Ou-la-la!
On WhatsApp, you get the news as it is happening, fresh and smoking. How else do you know that the Jagaban has just flown into Nigeria and is looking dapper after many weeks of bicycle riding in London? How do you find out the juicy details in the recent round in the Atiku vs Wike never ending world heavyweight boxing championship? You don’t want to know whether “super cop”, Abba Kyari has joined his guy, Hushpuppy in a beautiful FBI cell in America? If you are not on WhatsApp, tell me how you will quickly get the gist if Bobrisky in old age, quickly changes his mind and decides to go back to being a man?
Go to any social gathering these days, even in church, and everybody is typing on his little machine, ‘snapping’ photos, posting or ‘chatting’. Everyone is spreading information for good or for evil with all the biases that human beings have. My guy, there are no rules. Anyone can be as nasty as he wants to be, as raw as he chooses and as hateful as he decides to be. WhatsApp is the headquarters of fake news and hate news.
In February, the world woke up to the horror that Russian President, Vladmir Putin had ordered the full military invasion of his neighbouring nation of Ukraine. The bombing, the killing, the dyeing, the horrendous destruction is all there on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp with its two billion users has become a terrifyingly nuclear weapon. It has become clear that Mark Zuckerberg has in his hands an app that can be deployed to elect leaders anywhere and to remove them if he finds it necessary. Did I say an app? WhatsApp is no longer just an app, it is an army, much stronger than Putin’s heavily hyped but badly led army that is running for cover all over Ukraine. Please do not forget that Donald Trump, who no serious person gave a chance, conquered America with a smart phone. How does the world deal with a behemoth like WhatsApp? Matter for another day…
As we adjust to this new world, a world in which there soon will be no newspapers as we have known them, no checks and balances as we have been used to, no rules or regulations as we took for granted, how do we survive?
By the way, have you checked your WhatsApp today?
See you next week.
– Okoroji is the chairman of COSON