By Amanda Hjell Löfstedt
THE SHARP RING of air-raid sirens fills the silence as I stare out through the window at the empty square. It had previously been a place filled with movement and life, but now that is all gone. Grey clouds float by, colouring the world in a dim light, quite fitting for the occasion. I hear the faint breathing of someone, somewhere in the room, filling my mind with quiet stress. Nothing happens, no bombs, no shots, no soldiers or tanks. Just waiting, knowing what is coming, the calm before the storm. It is an excruciating wait as I watch the empty town square outside, and I just thank my lucky stars that I am watching in through a screen.
What I described above was my first interaction with the live feeds from the invasion of Ukraine. Only days after the fighting broke out along the border, it seemed like every other video on TikTok depicted that horrible silent wait as the air-raid sirens rang. It was the first time that the reality of war was broadcast on such a large scale, to the point where people started calling the invasion of Ukraine the world’s first “TikTok war”. It is a very accurate title if you ask me. For the first time in history, we got the chance to view the reality of war live. Not just the battlefields, the bombings, or the dead bodies lining the street. No, this time we got a chance to see silence, the wait, the threat of death just hanging in the air. To see what it is like to live through a modern war, how life continues even as the sky fills with explosions. Social media opened that backdoor, to the experience of being an everyday citizen in a time of conflict, a new perspective on war, and it reminded me of the way video reporting was said to have changed the way armed-conflict was perceived back in the day.
Journalism and reporting have always had an impact on the way we view war and military action. It can be – and has been – used to sway public opinion, expose war crimes, or gather support for one’s cause. But over time the way we view war through the lens of journalists has shifted. A prominent example of this is the Vietnam War, which was the first war that was ever broadcast directly to the public. It gave the American population a new perspective of the realities of war, a perspective that ended up swaying the public opinion so much that eventually, the US government had to pull their troops out due to a lack of domestic support for the war. At that time, seeing the cruel nature of war in such an unfiltered way – broadcasted directly into people’s living rooms – was something never heard of before. Today, those broadcasts of all the world’s suffering are nothing more than an average Tuesday to us, but they can still do just as much to impact the way we view modern day conflicts. Reporting from journalists and news channels, both big and small, are a core pillar in spreading information about ongoing conflicts out in the world, but it can also contribute to exposing of war crimes and spreading calls for help during crisis.
“Not just the battlefields, the bombings, or the dead bodies lining the street. No, this time we got a chance to see silence, the wait, the threat of death just hanging in the air.”
However, even if the freedom of speech and opinion – the foundation of modern journalism – are engraved into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they are not respected everywhere, and reporters are often silenced for their work. Here social media and live streaming have opened a new avenue for reporting, allowing not only journalists but everyone to share pictures and videos of what happens during wartime. On social media, everyone can be a journalist, making it that much harder for regimes or militants to hide their wrongdoings. The ability to livestream has also removed the obstacle of needing to upload a video after it has been recorded, allowing people to share the atrocities of war even in their last moments. Governments and armed groups alike can no longer hide if they commit war crimes, nor can they have full control over the information that gets out regarding the conflicts they engage in. As such, spreading propaganda or false information about war has become much more difficult, giving the world a wider range of impressions of what happens on the ground. Social media has truly opened the door to a new era of reporting, a new type of warfare, a time of “TikTok wars”. And as sharing and spreading information on social media gets easier and easier, hiding the uncomfortable and unwanted information is no longer as possible as it once was, allowing us to see war – and its parties – in its true light.
This might make it seem like social media will be the end to veiled war crimes and human rights abuses, however the reality is far more complex. Yes, social media empowers the spread of information and can expose the raw truth of war, but the evolution of the “TikTok war” has an often-forgotten dark side. The unfiltered nature of social media means the authenticity of what we see can never be guaranteed. This opens the door to false news and a new insidious form of propaganda. Civilians, governments, and armed groups alike can share distorted or outright false information to advance their agendas, in a way that has become far harder to fact check. Such manipulation has the potential to incite violence within local communities, shape global public opinion, and ultimately expand the conflict beyond its original boundaries or parties. One example of the effects that social media has had on warfare – especially ideological wars – is the emergence and expansion of so-called lone wolf terrorism. This is when an actor who is not directly connected to any organisation or group commits an act of terrorism, often in the name of an existing group involved in conflict or because they have been inspired by said group on social media.
As mentioned before, this problem is further spurred on by our seeming inability to be source-critical on social media. Take for example the term “Facebook-fact”, where people believe anything they see written on Facebook, no matter how true it is. I would argue this phenomenon has spread to other platforms as well, such as YouTube which has become a place of education, or X as a platform for public political debate. Being source-critical has never before been so important, and yet there seems to be little doubt about the truthfulness of the information we see on social media. When this phenomenon is related to conflict, it is clear how the blind trust we place in what we see on social media can cause a world of trouble, from the spread of propaganda and disinformation to the rapid expansion of violent extremism and global terrorism.
“On social media, everyone can be a journalist, making it that much harder for regimes or militants to hide their wrongdoings.”
Social media is a double-edged sword, one that must be approached with caution. On the one hand the growing influence of social media has opened a world of possibilities in conflict reporting and exposing war crimes. It has given us a chance to see the horrors of war – quite literally – live, inspiring people to expand aid and donate to help those affected by the conflicts. But on the other hand, it has also given ill-willing actors a whole new tool to use to manipulate facts or influence the public in a way that benefits them. And if we are not careful, we could very easily get caught in the trap of disinformation. So, as the world moves into a new era – the era of TikTok wars – tread with caution; and remember, it does not have to be true just because you read it on Facebook.
By: Amanda Hjelt Löfstedt
Photography: Ales Ustinov
