The Great Potential of Social Media
An analysis of The Hater (2020), propaganda, disinformation, and social media.
Jon Komassa’s The Hater (2020) paints a comprehensive picture of everything we have to fear about the impact of social media. We are introduced to convincingly deceptive Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski) in the first few minutes of the film; he is expelled from law school and skillfully makes it seem wrongful. Moments later, he reveals to a friend that he did, indeed, plaigarize a paper he’d written. This sets the stage for the questionable (at best) and abhorrent (at worst) actions that are to follow.
Tomasz finds work at a public relations firm where he proves himself very quickly. He does exactly what the client has tasked the firm with, bringing down a celebrity fitness influencer, by creating fake social media accounts and using them to falsely accuse her of promoting a harmful product. His boss (Agata Kulesza) questions him; is he sure about using these unethical tactics? He responds by revealing that he knows about her previous endeavors into the questionable and unethical.
Now that he has proven himself to be effective by any means necessary, he is placed on an account tasked with hurting the political campaign of progressive politican, Paweł Rudnicki (Maciej Stuhr). Tomasz uses tactics like the ones the United States experienced from Russia during the 2016 election. He creates fake social media accounts to represent people with extreme views on both sides of the political spectrum. On these accounts, he interacts with events, creates posts, shares content, all meant to outrage the other side, spark conflict, and further polarize the political parties of Poland. He organizes marches to take place on the same day and time and on paths that would cross, intentionally creating massive conflict between the two. He finds a troubled man with extreme right-wing ideals, Guzek (Adam Gradowski), who is also a gun fanatic. Tomasz engages the man through video game chat; he convinces him that an organization (of Tomasz’s own invention) needs him to take action to “save Poland from Islamization.” This brings about the major event of the film.
Guzek attends a major fundraiser for Rudnicki, the progressive candidate, and uses an automatic gun to kill what seems to be most of the attendees, including Rudnicki. Viewers can see in the media coverage of the event that the fake accounts were never discovered, and neither police nor the media believe that Guzek was directed to act by someone he knew through a video game. They repeated the notion that he was insane during the act. Tomasz, despite being the perpetrator of the hatred and violence, is painted as a hero for risking his life to take down the shooter.
This film depicts, with clarity, how easily someone with motivation can create extreme real-life action with nothing but intentional online presence. Before the 2016 U.S. election, the general public had likely never considered the possibility that social media could have such observable and quantifiable impact on real life. For decades, experts have talked about the possibility of the media shaping public agenda and the influence that violent media can have on a person’s outlook. In recent years, the experts have talked about the impact of social media on interpersonal relationships, teenagers’ confidence and self-indulgence, the average attention span, and so on. None of this impact has been so profound as the ability to interfere with democracy without being in a position of power, means, or influence.
One can confirm the existence of organizations like Russia’s “Internet Research Agency” or the KGB through an internet search. It’s confirmed and accessible. The real difference between what we see in the film and what we can confirm via research is the fact that the real example is a massive organization with presumably powerful shot-callers. In The Hater, it’s one person with the resources of a PR firm. While there is an element to fiction here, we are shown quite clearly how easy and accessible it can be to create something out of nothing. People are social; they want to engage with other people and share ideas they agree with. If they are outraged, they want to talk about that too. A free, online public forum creates a place to do just that, and the seemingly impossible task becomes toeing the line between controlling disinformation and imposing censorship. We haven’t seen a social media platform do it successfully yet. In the end of the film, we can see that lives were lost and authorities still have no sense that anyone besides the “insane” shooter was involved.
We watch Tomasz spread disinformation by creating content, giving it some traction through the fake accounts, and then letting algorithms and actual users continue the trend. Other than meeting the shooter’s demands, none of this costs Tomasz or his PR firm anything. All it takes is some strategy and intention to create wildfires out of online trends that spiral into real-world action and violence.
The director shows us the beginning of the real-world impact Tomasz is having in a brief moment where Tomasz has food delivered, and the carrier appears to be a Muslim man who has been assaulted. Tomasz appears taken aback; viewers may question for a moment if seeing his impact has altered his motivation. He continues on his mission, however, apparently unaffected by coming face to face with a victim of his influence. This scene seems to comment on the ‘strictly business’ nature of the questionable public relations firm and the motivation to win no matter what.
In the scene where conflicting marches meet and riot in the middle, a friend and mentor of Tomasz as well as progressive activist, Robert Krasucki (Jacek Koman), says something along the lines of “who comes up with these idiotic slogans, anyway?” He is referring to the right-wing marchers, many of whom are holding signs and banners with slogans that appear to be some of Tomasz’s creations. This scene comments on the somewhat invented conflict between the two poltiical parties. While we are well aware at this point that Tomasz is deceiving everyone around him to achieve his goals, it seems somewhat poetic that Robert could call slogans idiotic while sitting next to their creator, a person he respects and cares for. The fact that a progressive activist can sit next to a right-wing influencer and sustain an interpersonal relationship speaks to the idea that at least some of the political divide is artificial. For the sake of the plot, however, we know that this is more related to Tomasz’s duplicitous identity management.
The biggest lesson I can’t shake after watching this film is that you must think critically about whatever you are exposed to in the media. To consider whether or not it’s true isn’t enough. Who created the content? What was their motivation? Are they even a real person? Even if someone you know shared it, where did it originally come from? Does anyone have anything to gain from your engagement with this? Suddenly, it seems that the source-judging skills our high school teachers begged us to learn have application far beyond writing academic papers.
