Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Governor of Russia's Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region ... [+]
There’s someone running across a field. You can tell by the eerie silence that something is wrong, and then you hear the whistling sound of a missile. Panic sets in for a split second and you see the explosion just off in the distance.
It feels exactly like watching a war movie but this is no movie.
It’s a real clip from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and these videos are not hard to find at all. They reveal what is happening on the ground to real victims of the war, including children and other civilians. It’s a testament once again to the real power and value of social media. It’s a platform that is not afraid to shy away from the reality of war and the atrocities of the invasion.
In the short history of Twitter (which debuted about 15 years ago), there’s never been such a proliferation of video clips from a specific group of people, in a short time period, and that has impacted the world so dramatically.
After Russia invaded Ukraine recently, the clips started showing up one after the other. It’s now at the point where the images and videos are impossible to overlook, if you spend any time online at all. Here’s just one example that shows the devastation in Ukraine (with a warning that some of the images can be disturbing). Scrolling through this feed reveals exactly how powerful social media has become, because we can’t shield our eyes from it.
This is where Russian President Vladimir Putin might have underestimated the power of social media over the last few weeks as everyone around the world (except people in Russia, where social media apps are now banned) has viewed these images and videos.
You could make the case that all of the propaganda and misinformation being disseminated about the “real” purpose of the war, or the “true intentions” of the Russian military, are completely obliterated with a few Twitter posts showing what is actually happening.
That’s a rarity in the short history of social media, which has become known for political hate-speech and influencer marketing more than anything. What we’re really talking about here is a shift where social media has played an actual, legitimate role in helping people understand what has been happening and what life is like on the ground in this war-torn area.
Just one example of this: An organization called Feed My Starving Children has already arranged to send 1.5 million meals to families in Ukraine, with a plan to send another 2 million.
The organization doesn’t have to make a case that there is a massive need, since social media has made that abundantly clear. One quick look at Twitter and you will see there is an incredibly obvious need. (It makes me question the value of Instagram all over again. That app and many of its users seem oblivious to the reality of this global crisis.)
I would imagine other humanitarian aid organizations are not struggling to convince people there is a need and an urgency. On Twitter, using the hashtag #ukraine will reveal everything you need to know about the humanitarian crisis happening in real time right now.
That’s something Putin probably could not have predicted. Now the question is whether social media will have an impact on humanitarian aid or resolving the global crisis, or if this unfiltered access really makes a difference.
