Social Media and Freedom of Expression - insight of Cindy Karmoko

Cindy Karmoko is an Indonesian fashion blogger, who’s currently studying in Milan, Italy major in fashion design. Her passion about fashion and street-style could be seen through her fashion blog “Hippie GoneMad”. Social media surely is taking a big role for her career as a fashion a blogger.

So, I have chance to interview her through the help of social media, where she said yes to be interviewed by me in instagram, and here it goes.

•    What was your first social media account? When was it? And what is your opinion about it?

Oh i remember my long lost Friendster account, I was 13 years old back then. I abandoned my Friendster because I found a better social app, which is Facebook, Friendster was full of annoying people and perverts…. 

• As fashion blogger, how can you define the freedom of expression? 

      Fashion is a way to express myself, who I am and most of the time who I want to be. I started my blog because I need a diary, I love to write and to share my life changing experiences with others. 2 years ago I was a super shy kid, people hate my style because I’m different and my blog was and is my sweet escape. That’s why I always say that HippieGoneMad is my virtual wonderland; I can do whatever I want there. I’m free to wear anything and share my opinions about life. I believe that God created us equally but never the same.

•    How exactly social media can relate to the life of bloggers? And how essence is social media among the bloggers?

Blog itself is a social media, without blog we couldn’t share anything at all. For me, I love my blog whether someone will read it or not. But it’s always nice to know that a lot of people from all over the world have the same opinion and appreciate your style. With a lot of app such as Facebook, instagram etc, we can share and get a lot of opinions faster than before. Honest opinions from strangers were priceless and to get to know a lot of important people within fashion industry.

•   Is the social media playing a big role for your career as fashion blogger?  And if yes, tell us about it.

Yes of course, as a blogger i love to make a lot of new friends and to meet a lot of people from different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, etc. Social media is like a magic door for me. I can communicate with a lot of people from different countries + people in other countries will recognize my existence (vice versa) . I have a lot of new friends from United States, Australia and of course Europe just because they saw me on facebook, twitter, instagram,blogspot etc.

•      Have you ever experienced a not-really-good situation with other users in social   media? How do you usually handle that kind of situation?

    You need to be tough sometimes, anons were quite mean back than, but people will throw rocks at the things that shine anyway. Success is the best revenge.

• What do you think about the revolution of social media in internet? And is there any effect to the bloggers? Is it positive effect or negative effect?

What kind of revolution? Did you mean evolution? Hmm… I love the new app like instagram, videofyme etc. Everybody can have the fresh starts and a lot of people took the easiest way to gain their followers in some social media but when it comes to the new one people can tell the difference anyway.

• What do you think about the co-relation between freedom of information and freedom of expression as a blogger?

     Hmm… I think in order to express ourselves we need to give a certain amount of infos so that people will know us better. The more you give the more you’ll get, in the virtual world you can give as much infos that you want, and nobody could stop you from doing it.

• Last but not least, share some suggestions to the people in social media on how to use freedom of expression in a right way.

 As much as I love to share, there are a lot of things that I don’t want people to “touch”, like my close friends from high school, my family, my friends who don’t care too much about who I am as a blogger, overexposing your private life is not a good thing, a lot of my friends don’t want me to tweet about  our personal jokes, they prefer to use “Path”. All I can say is , you can be anything you want in the virtual world, but at the end of the day, make sure you won’t regret what you’ve done. No pornography or exposing yourself too much. 

Tweet-War in ethics of communication

Tweet-War arises in the certain circumstances where there parties in a social media called twitter blurting out an offensive and allude other party. Most of tweet-war happens due to immature and irresponsible comments by certain people. Without going out of topic, communication in social media should be controlled under the freedom of information and freedom of speech, as both of it are taking parts in communication and social media as medium.

Tweeting is one of many ways to communicate in cyber communication we have nowadays. Most of people actually depend on this, as there are many social media in internet, we come out with a question why twitter becomes one of the most uses social media in internet yet the most dangerous social media in internet? Million people come over to twitter from facebook as they find twitter is simpler than facebook, just like what has happened when people migrating from Friendster. Twitter is actually giving out challenge on how to communicate with only 140 characters while facebook is giving out freedom to write with many characters. Even with the challenge, people still survive themselves in twitter and even more the 140 characters become the start of a war.

Some people might have idea that twitter is more private than facebook. In fact that even your account is private but once your tweet is being re-tweet, the entire world would know what’s going on. As Howie Severino stated “In twitter, the world is your audience”, like a flashlight an issues could spread as fast as it is a tweet war could possibly happen.

Tweet-war is not only happening among the citizen (netizen) but also between the celebrity even politicians. The saddest thing is when a tweet-war happens to politicians or celebrity; they could not control their emotion and keeping the war-on-fire. As a citizen, disappointment and confuse us might feel; as we see them as a good role model and of course they must be good in ethics of communication (as they are the mouth of citizen to the government institutions). Celebrities’ tweet-war are the most wanted by the citizen, they find it amusing to see.

Generally speaking, people should have been aware about ethics in communication (as we communicate everyday) specifically in cyber-world. Communicating through social media become the trend and lifestyle for people but we need to be aware that the message from sender might be received differently by the receiver. A very general ethics in communicating such as respect other people opinions, using appropriate diction, respect the work of other people and the most important is not to butting in to other people problem. Last but not least, let us be a good netizen as now we live in advance world where both virtual and real can help and work out together.

Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information as the extension of both freedom of speech and freedom of expression become the essence factor for the citizen (netizen) to render their opinions through online way. We can’t deny that most of time in one day we spend is in front of the computer or smart phone using the internet. Internet helps us a lot in daily life, most of students depend their lives on the internet, teachers’ gathering more topics from the internet, journalists’ also working out the news through the social media, almost all the works we have is depending on the work of internet. But as a normal citizen have we ever thought about how safe the internet is? How much freedom we have in cyber-world? What are the dos and don’ts’ in the internet? Is there any law that covers the internet users?

Andrew Puddephatt stated “Freedom of speech which generally understood as freedom of expression in any medium, it can be orally, in writing, print, through online way and other form of arts”. While Freedom of Information refers to the right of citizen (netizen) to express themselves, share opinions, thoughts, and any other form of work such as videos, pictures, songs in the internet.

Freedom of Information Act becomes the umbrella to protect citizen with regards to their right to use the internet as the medium to express themselves. Pros and contras have always been there since each of countries government issuing the law. The citizens are the one who enjoys result of FOI through journalists and other government representative. Some certain people might have thought that the journalists are the one who gets advantage but if we could look deeper to the work of journalist, they actually are trying to dig deeper information which the citizens are deserved to know from the government. Beside all the uses of FOI, it is also taking role as the prevention (or the controller) of the misused of internet such as terrorism purpose, pornography, and other uneducated purpose.

Internet censorship takes an essential role especially for the kids. “The revolution of censorship has been developed as much as Freedom of Speech in the internet” said the editor of Index on Censorship, Jo Glanville. Indeed every citizen has the right to use the internet but the degree of internet consumption must be different based on the age level. To protect kids from uneducated information which can be seen freely in internet probably can be one of major function of censorship in internet. As the holder of this freedom, citizen should come up with idea or thought of internet for a positive purpose and not to misuse it.

References:

• The Jakarta Globe x FOI in Indonesia
• The Manila times x FOI in the Philippines
• Internet Censorship x FOI