Call for new social media platform supported by media outlets
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Hossein Derakshan
Hossein Derakshan is an Iranian journalist who spent six years in jail in Iran after creating the blogging revolution in the war-torn country.
Speaking at one discussion titted “Post web journalism: how can the media survive the shift?” he argued that FB and Twitter have outlived their usefulness and urged media outlets to come together and create a new social media platform. “We must start campaigns to push these companies (FB/Twitter) to disclose what their values are, what lies behind (their content)? They need to give us options between video centered newsfeeds and text? Or a news oriented story rather than seeing people’s cats, parties, or what we eat for breakfast? We need to demand a separate news feed.
They (FB) dictate what we eat, where we stay, what we should do? Even if there are news stories no one reads it on these channels as people are throttled with social pursuits like eating, partying, etc,” he said. Creating a new social platform could spark off a new kind of journalism which is a good development, he said, urging citizens to distrust media like FB and Twitter and make sure that content is divided into news and other things providing users an option unlike today. During the discussion, it was disclosed from the audience that though social networks helped launch the Arab spring, it also led to failure. Social networks helped the information to spread but it was a one-sided flow. “In this discourse, everyone thought they were right and the other person was wrong. That created divisions, distrust and conflict.”