Should social media be regulated in Somalia? Or should Somalia ban Tiktok?

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In the last few months, the issue of opioid addiction among Somali youth has come to light, and there are questions about how the government is handling it. However, there is another issue that is also very damaging to the young Somali population, and that is the digital opium that is Tiktok. In this article, I’m going to talk about some of the harms of Social media on the Somali society, some possible solutions to the problem and whether the government should consider banning the app.

This is a debate that has been ongoing in developed countries like the USA and China for many years now. Proponents of regulation talk about the impact of social media on teens and how its addictive nature is affecting their focus on education. Critics of regulation point to the Snowden leaks and how governments can use regulations as a way to censor people and control the masses.

While I used to be firmly in the “absolutely no regulations” camp and would even leave my phone at home to avoid being tracked by the government, I now believe that, when it comes to Somalia, maybe it’s for the greater good to introduce at least some sort of regulation.

China

For a long time, I didn’t want to create a TikTok account because I didn’t want all my personal information stored on a server somewhere in China. Furthermore, I did not like the format of watching 30-second videos on end. However, after recently downloading the app, I have found that while #Somalitiktok has some funny or educational content for teens, for the most part, it is filled with bad takes, unoriginal content, and just inane edits about nothing.

On March 1, TikTok announced that it was setting a default time limit of 60 minutes per day for users under 18. Those under 13 would need a code entered by their parents to have an additional 30 minutes, while those between 13 and 18 could make that decision for themselves. While the effectiveness of this measure remains to be seen (it’s certainly possible, for example, to lie about your age when registering for the app), in 2022, teens spent an average of 103 minutes per day on TikTok, beating Snapchat (72 minutes) and YouTube (67). I believe Somali teens, on average, spend at least double that time on Tiktok.

For example, consider my 19-year-old cousin, whom I recently met after 10 years and who is lying next to me as I type this and scrolls past loud TikToks. He averages over 8 hours a day on his phone, and almost 5 of those are spent on TikTok alone. Yes, 5 hours, and the rest on WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Facebook, even though he is not a creator but just a consumer. This is not unique to him; while he might average more now because he is off school and looking to get into university, this is a recurring theme for Somali youth, and it’s even more so for those that are creators and go on the live feature of the app regularly.

The USA has had its fair share of critics of the social media app, and recently the tech giant CEO was called to the hot seat to testify before Congress and answer whether TikTok was a Trojan horse sent to distract their youth, steal everyone’s data, and take over the world. Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, even said, “It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world.”

While the Somali government might not have the means or innovation to introduce regulations and expensive identity-identifying tools to verify people’s ages before signing up, nor do we want the government to censor social media and use it to mute free speech and journalism. On the other hand, governments also have a responsibility to protect citizens from potential risks posed by social media platforms, especially to the youth of the country and on their education. However, they need to find innovative and cost-effective ways to manage this addiction.

My cousin’s screen time

Attention span

Attention is a precious commodity in today’s world of constant digital distractions. I mean look at the rising “Tiktokification” of all these apps like YouTube shorts and Instagram reels, all competing for that last second of your attention.

 Have you ever had to shout “warya, warya!?” to see if the teen you were speaking to is still listening to what you were saying? Social media is a likely culprit behind this trend and its effects on the brain. Nobel-winning economist Herbert Simon foresaw this many years ago when he said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

The reduction in the attention span of students can have a serious impact on their ability to learn. Constant interruptions and digital distractions make it difficult for students to retain information, and if they are only accustomed to receiving information in small pieces, they may struggle to understand complex concepts and engage in critical thinking.

It is also no secret that Somalia needs “deep” workers, as Carl Newton puts it’s in his highly acclaimed book about productivity called Deep work Deep work is a state of peak concentration that lets you learn hard things and create quality work quickly”. We cannot know the value of deep work if we don’t know about the harms of screen times and distractions can have on our life and it’s impacts on the value of our work and education.

In the same book Carl Newport says this about social media “These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers. They can be fun, but in the scheme of your life and what you want to accomplish, they’re a lightweight whimsy, one unimportant distraction among many threatening to derail you from something deeper. Or maybe social media tools are at the core of your existence. You won’t know either way until you sample life without them.”

Eroding Dhaqan.

While social media can help introduce new people to your culture, I mean one search of #somalitiktok on Tiktok and you can see all these foreigners doing a dhaanto or eating canjeero and even sometimes cooking it. Whether if they’re doing that out of love for the culture or even if it’s a meaning engagement and not a short, superficial or lacking any depth or just for views, the jury is till out on that.

social media can also be seen as a harmful force for culture, as it exposes people and young people to a constant stream of information and frankly innate degenerate content that may not reflect their own cultural values and beliefs. It can also create a pressure for people to conform to the norms of the zeitgeist and whatever ism of the day and expectations of the online community and that at its worst produce a generation that is unoriginal or lacking a traditional inspiration and respect to how things used to be.

This is also evident by recent studies that show that now, 1 in 5 gen z identifies as trans America and if we know anything this is due to the heavily promoted gender ideology, which Tiktok has been the biggest Social media for Trans influencers like Dylan Mulvaney. While I’m not one to believe in low hanging-tech related conspiracy theories, I mean like why would a Chinese company like Tiktok promote Trans “women” so heavily when in their own country they put a ban on effeminate to appear on tv!? I mean why would I get a notification every time that trans activist Jefferey Marsch has uploaded a new video when I looked him only once when he was involved in a grooming controversy?

One solution.

While I do not claim to have all the answers, I believe one potential solution is for our community or the government to invest in platforms of our own and promote them. These platforms could be social media-type platforms where the content is moderated or at least the one’s given more priority are the more authentic and engaging ones. They could also incorporate microlearning to avoid cognitive overload and reduce stress on the limbic system, which is always in a fight or flight mode.

We are a homogenous society, we speak the same language and have the same culture, value and beliefs and having a platform of our own is a real possibility. This to me was confirmed recently when I found out about Somalispot.com, a Somali only reddit type forum where there are discussions of all topics that are related to Somalia and has thousands of Somali users. While I also acknowledge and for the most part against outright banning things, We have to think about how the daily things we consume are shaping us and more important who and where is it from, like the Father of Propaganda Edward Bernays says in his book PropagandaWe are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

He also says in the same book “We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

In conclusion, while the debate on whether to regulate or ban social media platforms like Tiktok is ongoing in developed countries, we and our people in power must address the issue of digital addiction among its youth population. I’m not writing this to advocate for censorship or banning but to raise an awareness and to at the very least get the conversation going. The effects of addictive platforms that are accessed by the young without any awareness of its harms is for everyone to see and taking actions about it, even its just launching campaigns involving and educating parents about the harms unrestricted access could have on their children is a start. I’m sure some people would say “But we have more important issues to tend to” and that maybe true but doesn’t mean we should take this for granted or let it slip under the radar. Many great nations took drastic measures to progress and be where they wanted to be, it’s time we start doing that.

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