Core of content must be human, says top social media influencer

Social media platforms are multiple lane carriageways that must be heavily guarded with well-meaning and well-intentioned communities.

It is the content creators themselves who must make sure that social media is safe and secure for all – albeit the concern over the freedom of expression.

They, who must first put into their heart the huge wedge between the power of the social media influencer and the power of the content creator; which, in the first place is con-joinable for everyone’s benefit, according to Michael Banua.

Banua, who goes by his social media handle Yourkuyamico, and who went full blast into content creation since the precarious Novel Coronavirus, is into the well-rounded continuous education of their kind: “We have to exert the conscious effort on how to standardise things and how to really say the do’s and don’ts. The core should really be human.”

“It is also a big factor for the big platforms to help us because they can regulate. They are doing their part like what some governments have been doing. But they must be stricter in censorship,” he added.

Addressed by his over 200,000 followers as “Kuya Mico,” Banua shared his viewpoints as Gulf Today pressed on, regarding the unstoppable rise of posted violence against man, across ages such as sexism and child abuse, as well as against animals.

One case was of “a man and two minors” in the Laguna Province of the Philippines, “dousing kittens with alcohol, set their fur on fire, laughed at the spectacle, and recorded for online content.”

The incident earned the ire of animal rights groups. The Manila Times described it as “an act of brainless and heartless barbarism” in its Aug. 30 editorial “Animal cruelty is not content.”

On the same day, Banua, Ahmed Ali (Emirati Food Geeks founder/chief executive officer), Sakshi Chanchal (Social Kandura co-founder), Arva Ahmed (Frying Pan Adventures co-founder), and Nora Fahmy (Visioneers Business Development and Commercial Strategy leader-content writer), discussed with broadcast journalist Zeena Zalamea, their choice of traversing content creation and entrepreneurship, responsibly and creatively, without compromising their values.

Through the “Kuya: Unfiltered – The Creator Journey, Lessons & Conversations – We Don’t Chase The Algorithm. We Build What Lasts,” the second which Banua organised in two months, the panel, asked by 40 aspiring and established content creators, reflective of the UAE’s ethnically-rich macrocosm, talked about their naturally unavoidable and unforeseen faux pas and challenges.

The former Research-Chemistry-Physics teacher at the Makati Science High School back in his home country, the Philippines, decided to conduct master classes because fellow Filipino content creators, after he became a Mai Dubai ambassador on the billboards, have swamped him for how to be like him.

It is for the helping hand too, because Banua caught a young content creator screaming online his chagrin over his fruitless life due to the unfruitfulness of his social media posts.

“I reminded him that he has a long way to go. He is only 22. I told him that I started my life when I was already 33,” added the former scientist at the University of the Philippines Ayala Land Techno Hub in Quezon City, a stem cell laboratory, wherein among his tasks was to “cryogenetically stock” for a good century, the “stem cell-rich umbilical cords of mothers.”

Born on Dec. 2, 42 years ago, in the Southeastern Mindanao Province of Davao de Oro, where his migrant grandpa became the lawyer of the gold-and-nickel miners, the Talomo Central School (Davao City) “The Beach” editor-in-chief (EIC) and The Philippine Science High School (Mindanao Campus) “The Nucleus” EIC landed in Dubai, when the UAE was celebrating its 45th founding anniversary on Dec. 2, 2016.

The two-week stay and only to accompany a buddy meeting up “his fiancé” stretched.

Surrounded by writer-and-Physical Science academician aunts as well, and a house staff that filled his imagination with earth-bound creatures, Banua wrote his first story in the “colourful Filipino language” at age 3. He never stopped since then, as teachers like “Miss Elsa Valiente” were also a huge encouragement.