The conscience of the influencer

Influencers have barely rested throughout the ongoing coronavirus-related quarantine. They may admit it or not, but many of them wittingly or unwittingly continued to promote choice brands and products to their captive audiences, through posts about “care packages” sent their way by public relations firms.

Many readers noticed the posts with product placements, but most kept mum about it. I totally don’t mind. And who would want our influencers and PR managers to go jobless in this season of staying in, and an absolute ban on events?

When trouble broke out about the shortages of face masks and PPEs for frontliners, as well as the slow pace and inadequate amount of emergency aid for the masses, we have to give it to many of our influencers. They stepped out of their comfort zones and went beyond their niches to articulate what is by now a fairly universally accepted demand for care for our frontliners.

Ditto for the public demand for mass testing, which many influencers again backed and continue to promote.

These socially engaged posts are not surprising, really. Many bloggers and influencers have always been at the forefront of social media use for social change. From the time of Ondoy up to Taal’s eruption, they were not just mainstays. They pushed the boundaries of what’s possible, especially in the online space.

The independent initiative Frontline Feeders, for instance, used online and offline tactics to gather donations, track down food needs of thousands of healthcare workers, and made sure meals are delivered on time. Quietly, they were able to produce and deliver 300,000 meals were dozens of hospitals in Metro Manila.

Bloggers and influencers have also gone overtly political many times. They’ve filed impeachment complaints against a sitting president. They challenged the Cybercrime

Law before the highest court. They came out swinging against the pork barrel system, and summoned our people to a Million People March. In 2016, they went ballistic over the hero’s burial for the dictator.

And in the fairly recent moves against Rappler and ABS-CBN, many bloggers expressed outrage over the transparent assaults on press freedom and freedom of expression.

It is thus quite surprising that some bloggers and influencers have taken it against their audiences that they are being asked to speak out on the terror bill. All of a sudden, these bloggers and influencers beg to have their privacy respected and not be “forced” into taking sides on an issue that their audiences are deeply concerned about.

The biggest influencers like Catriona Gray, Pia Wurtzbach, Anne Curtis, members of Ben&Ben, and a whole ensemble of other performing artists have spoken courageously and clearly on the terror bill. In their posts, they made it clear that they have read the bill and have serious objections to it, even going so far as pointing out the specific “objectionables” and what their audiences could do about them.

It is quite unbelievable that some of our friends have suddenly chosen to be quiet and to reject their audience’s demands to take sides — any side, for that matter. Their cop-out statements, as well as their violent pushback, are a slap on their own faces. They have forgotten that their audiences go to them precisely because of the respect the influencers have earned through the years. The audiences know that their influencers are too brilliant and too articulate not to have a position on the terror bill.

For if influencers could be vehement and intense about the specifications of the latest phones, gadgets, shoes, and apparel, surely their audiences expect them to use the same critical points of view on an issue that is bound to affect the so-called democratic space online and offline.

If influencers could pore over hundreds of pages of style guides and manuals, surely they could take a look at the terror bill’s few dozen pages.

Perhaps the trouble is not really on the pressure some influencers feel is coming from their audience’s activist streak nowadays. That’s just where the pressure begins. The trouble starts with past political positions they have taken. They may not admit it, but we have a lot of influencers who used their influence for partisan politics in 2016 and they have remained loyal to their principal. We know a lot of them. Many remain unapologetically supportive of their principal, even to the extent of defending, tolerating, deodorizing, and promoting trolls, hate speech, and disinformation.

They are, not incidentally, mostly the ones who refuse to take a position on the terror bill. Even if deep in their hearts they possibly fear for the loss of freedom of expression, they cannot go and join the multitudes who have spoken out.

Some of our friends have unfortunately forgotten that the conscience of the influencer is the conscience of the ordinary citizen. We have always asserted that what sets bloggers apart is the claim that we are closer to the audience because we are no different from them. We were once members of the audience who later seized the potentials of a once-nascent social media to become media ourselves. And along the way, we achieved influence.

The audiences are thus correct and justified in wanting their influencers to speak out. Concerned over the fate of the rights we all hold dear, the audiences rightly demand that their influencers speak out their minds, and to speak out for them on the terror bill. And if the influencers support the bill, that they just be honest about it.