"Hit the dog with the dog's back"

(Baonghean) - Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+... are becoming increasingly familiar to our people, attracting millions of users, creating a large online "community", with a very fast speed of information dissemination. Even electronic information pages, a new type of journalism, are sometimes inferior to social networks in information dissemination, at least in terms of time. And people have realized that there is a not small "challenge" regarding the influence of this new type of media on traditional information tools such as print newspapers, television, radio...

And as we know, the press is an important channel for ideological work that has a great influence in society. The challenge of social networks to the press is also a challenge to ideological work in the current period. With just a few popular personal devices such as smartphones or compact tablets, information and images of an event or character will be quickly and easily posted on the internet. Meanwhile, the authenticity of information and images is not guaranteed. In addition, social networks also change the behavior of the public from being passive recipients of information to becoming active participants in the production, provision and sharing of information.

Of course, when sharing and providing information, people always bring their own subjective views, wishes, and desires to achieve a certain purpose. That purpose can be good or bad. And although the recipient of the information cannot verify whether the images and information are real or fake, they more or less affect their thoughts and feelings. Making them think according to the subjective wishes of the provider. There have been many cases where just a few people have led a large number of social network users to create a collective effect, a crowd effect from the online community, turning it into trends and trends in real life. A typical example is the case of the online community calling for a boycott of Tan Hiep Phat's soft drink products, causing significant damage to this business.

Later, it was discovered that it was an unfair competitive tactic of competitors in the same industry. Therefore, bad guys and hostile forces have taken full advantage of this advantage of social networks to spread false information in a way that mixed truth and falsehood, causing social turmoil, creating doubts, and even damaging people's trust in the regime. Most recently, the story of General Phung Quang Thanh going abroad for medical treatment was fabricated and exaggerated by bad forces into a plot to destroy each other before the 12th National Party Congress. Of course, not many people believed that, but it still caused doubts and confusion in society for a short time. Not only exaggerating, fabricating, and distorting, the "peaceful evolution army" also spent a lot of time and effort using anti-negative articles in mainstream newspapers, then organizing analysis and commentary in the direction of defaming the regime and inciting people. It can be said that opening social networks, there is not a day without similar stories and images being posted and discussed in that way. All of them are like polluted water, poisoning people's thoughts day and night.

However, that does not mean that social networks are considered bad and should be completely prevented by administrative or technical measures. Instead, we should "go with the flow", using social networks as a new, sharp weapon to do ideological work for the people. To do that, the team of ideological workers today must not only have a firm ideological stance, grasp and thoroughly understand the viewpoints, policies and guidelines of the Party, policies and laws of the State, but also be a "keyboard warrior", an active, aggressive and proactive "netizen" to engage and lead the online community in a direction that is beneficial to the country and the people.

At the same time, focus on analyzing and clarifying to help social network users clearly identify which are toxic winds and which are cool streams through statuses or comments that are lively, witty, yet profound and highly intellectual. Of course, doing so takes a lot of time and effort. And certainly, work cannot be limited to "8 golden hours" but must be 24/24 hours. And it is also impossible to passively wait for documents, instructions or verbal orders from the head of the agency before taking action, but must be proactive everywhere, at all times. Whenever any toxic winds are detected spreading on social networks, it is necessary to immediately "dispatch troops and generals" with a cool head and 10 flexible fingers to prevent and repel them with sharp arguments and specific, clear evidence.

Doing ideological work now must be like that. We must be proactive, we must be one step ahead. We must know how to promote the advantages of modern information technology to serve propaganda and education work. We must use the network tools to disintegrate the plots and wills of those who use social networks to plot to do wrong things. This is called "using one's own petard to hit one's own back".

Buddha Mountain