In Pakistan, the Central Superior Services (CSS) exam has long been known as the gateway to prestige, power, and public service. Historically, bureaucrats have worked behind the scenes to ensure the smooth governance and contribute to national development. However, in this digital age, it could be said that social media is creating an entirely new role that CSS officers now occupy.

From personal success stories and motivational talks to vlogs and reels, the bureaucrats are inundating the media with their success stories. While supporters of this transformation hail democratization of information and greater involvement of citizens, it raises ethical and moral questions about its ramifications for public governance, what constitutes bureaucracy in society, and how that influences its functioning.

The Rise of Bureaucrats as Influencers

In the digital age, with visibility synonymous with influence, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have completely transformed the way people communicate and consume information. Gentle shading between personal and professional leadership allows anyone with an internet connection to reach possibly bigger audiences. Once an obscure bureaucratic figure, CSS commissioned officers have become a prominent number of digital influencers. As these officers have transformed their status from the erstwhile quiet public servants into well-regarded personalities, they have acquired immense power to sway opinions.

Often perceived as the official intellectuals and paragons of civil service, CSS officers have found a way to share their insights and experiences online. The usual graduation from an illustrious institution enables such officers to attract a mass audience eager to know what governance, civil service, and personal development are all about. A combination of several elements is a recipe for the rise of bureaucrats into the influencer league.

The increasing Internet penetration has made social media platforms the order of the day, open arenas where actors, musicians, and influencers once found themselves. Nowadays, anybody with a smartphone or computer can find a way to reach out directly to the masses. This has offered a unique opportunity for CSS officers to engage with the public, answer their queries, and to scribe their perspectives on issues and governance.

Why Bureaucrats as Influencers Raise Concerns

The transformation of bureaucrats into influencers, while fascinating, carries with it several considerable disadvantages. Beyond the dilution of the integrity of the civil service, it clouds the true intent of bureaucracy and promotes conflicts of interest.

Conflict of Interest and Ethical Dilemmas

A bureaucrat is one who must define their role on the basis of neutrality, professionalism, and discretion. These ears are entrusted with the great responsibility of providing an impartial apparatus wherein the decisions would benefit all and protect the integrity of the state. They ought to maintain the rule of law while serving as reliable custodians for governance, often taking place backstage and shunning attention from the public. As they plunge into the raging waters of social connect and nurture a status of influencer, there is a blurring of the lines that their profession imposes on them, thus breeding potential conflicts of interest and ethical dilemmas.

Personal Branding Over Governance

Building a personal brand can greatly increase one’s cause or influence in the digital world. With an audience of followers, influencers can attract an astonishing amount of recognition and even money. On the flip side, for a bureaucrat, the drift towards personal branding takes them down the path to violating their professional duties. The whole passion to see the policy effectively executed will be starved off when the officer is busy with content curation, increasing his online volume, and perpetually keeping secure image management. This shall pivotally distract the bureaucrat from other things he should pour his attention toward: the provision of matching public services and government policies satisfying the staple needs of the masses. When gradually the popularity and image would turn out to be assigned to such important roles, decisions may become coercive functions of what draws in absolute public excitement rather than what would be effective or needed for good governance.

Selective Representation

A key problem with bureaucrats using social media is the selective nature of what they share with the public. Given that online platforms are largely curated, the depiction that they present to the digital audience hardly covers the complexities and challenges of governance in their entirety. Often, officers showcase their achievements while peppering their pages with motivational posts and presenting themselves as perfect humans, creating a perfect image that doesn’t, in any way, relate to the current realities of the system of bureaucracy.

While an urge to showcase the ideal self may make sense, selective representation can easily lead to skewed views about the structure of governance. The public could come away convinced that the work of bureaucrats is less than imperfect or that their policies are yielding desired results when, in practice, major issues or systemic hurdles are not being tackled. This curated representation seriously hinders genuine constructive criticisms from penetrating beyond the shallow issue of bureaucracy and affects the ability of the public to appreciate the deeper and far-reaching problems that affect the bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy as a Performance

The essence of bureaucracy is the commitment to serving the people, rarely actually in the limelight, and without the necessity of awareness. Bureaucrats are expected to perform their functions with commitment, working toward systemic reform and good governance. But with the rise of social media, this grounded role became a total performance, as a result of which reporters would seek attention and audience interaction, where every move of an official could be turned into content. What used to be an institution for silent, discreet service has been turned into a main stage for bureaucrats to showcase their actions and decisions to a broader audience.

Glorification of individual efforts

With the portrayal of public servants by the media as being heroic, it is easy to forget that governance is a collective exercise. It involves a collective effort through many levels of administration, policy formulation, and public engagement. The individual becomes the symbol of change, obscuring the various players who contribute to meaningful reform and solutions. Such creates a misconception in the workings of governance and trivializes the work of teamwork and collaboration that is needed for durable improvements in society.

Finding the Balance: A Call for Ethical Digital Presence

The rise of bureaucrats as influencers breaks new ground in opportunities and challenges.  Social media is an exceptionally potent tool with an immensely wider audience in real-time. It can be used to educate, enlighten, and spread positive social charges. However, it can also sour the realities and superficialize issues, further undermining the image of its shareholders. Due to this, the rise of CSS officers as influencers tells us there is a need to strike a delicate balance between their role as professionals and influencers. In such a scenario, these officers should be very careful in dealing with the digital medium. Ethical guidelines are needed to check against any potential abuse through the use of their office.

Recommendations for Ethical Engagement

Transparency and Accountability

Bureaucrats who decide to engage with social media must declare to the public any financial gains or sponsorships they receive from posting material online. This clarifies whether they or their organizations had sponsorships. It goes a long way in sustaining the integrity of an officer.

Strict Boundaries

Bureaucrats must never forget to keep a clear distinction between their internet activities and their official duties. Their social media presence must never interfere with their work for the state. Besides, they must avoid using social media to express any personal political views, as that can compromise their neutrality or reflect bias in providing their professional services. With officers keeping separate spheres for personal and professional life, they would avoid conflicts of interest.

Avoid Exploitation

When telling stories or doing humanitarian work, CSS officers must respect the dignity and privacy of the individuals and communities involved. Social media could very well be the premier platform for highlighting social issues, but it must not be under shady or inappropriate conditions. Officers should be very sensitive to how they present such struggles or personal stories, to ensure that they are not exploiting vulnerable individuals for the sake of attention or acclaim. When humanitarianism is to be shared, it should be done with empathy, breathing life into the individuals and causes behind it, and not on the achievements or public image of the officer.

Promote Teamwork

CSS officers must more often emphasize their contributions in connection with teamwork and never as sole contributors to victories borne in offices they serve. Governance has seldom been a one-person show, but consists of cooperation, coordination, and systematic processes. It can be in this context that officers can appropriately stress the importance of teamwork and put systemic challenges ahead of their personal services. This would enhance the authenticity of their engagements on social media and provide a much more aligned form of digital influence that stands for collective responsibility and integrity.

Conclusion

The role of CSS officers has changed since the advent of social media. They became influencers and gained new opportunities for power, reach, and public trust, promising greater transparency, inspiration, and partnership between officers and the public. It also throws up burning ethical issues, especially as the division becomes blurred between public service and self-promoting. This change from bureaucrats as public servants to bureaucrats as influencers challenges the essence of governance. It raises difficult questions: is this shift empowering citizens and strengthening institutions, or is this really diluting the sanctity of bureaucracy in favor of digital fame?

If legislated with care, integrity, and a strong sense of purpose, officials can utilize their platforms to forge better communication lines between their leaders and the led. The same insights that led to public education should carry them into the realm of genuine and lasting change. Such officers can use their standing to push systemic reform, pursue social issues, and mentor the creators of the future among the civil servants. If, however, strong commitments as to the boundaries of ethical behavior are not actionable, the line between service and spectacle will inherently blur, with many of the principles on which a model civil and public service can thrive, neutrality, accountability, and integrity, being sacrificed to the altar of digital popularity at the expense of public credentials.

---

If you want to submit your articles and/or research papers, please visit the Submissions page.

To stay updated with the latest jobs, CSS news, internships, scholarships, and current affairs articles, join our Community Forum!

The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift!