Academics should claim their place in social media

IT is actually an uphill battle, this fight to bring some sanity into social media, one that has effectively been commandeered by noisy partisans, some of whom have even profited from their monetized accounts. We cannot allow social media to be simply providing us the limited options of either being inhabited by apolitical individuals gleefully posting their vacation reels and food porn Instagram moments, or by extremely blinded political netizens lost in their idolatry of political personalities whom they have elevated to become demigods. Consequently, the latter would excrete internet bile and fill cyberspace with toxicity aimed at those who dare criticize their idols. These are the people who until now cannot move on from the 2022 elections, except that now the vitriol appears no longer between the pinks and the Marcos supporters. Now, it is happening between the Marcos loyalists and some diehard Duterte supporters, both coming from a cohort who are actually former allies.