Fida Iqbal

Inspiring Thought, Shaping Perspectives

Using social media with responsibility

Here do you express and unwind yourself

Net users are to be tamed and trained in a way that they should understand the values of freedom of speech and expression in the right perspective

After the arrival of television and advancement in information technology, many of our tech-savvy friends and colleagues would often mention about the possibility of audiovisual telephony. And then the day arrived when the whole world overcoming all physical and political barriers turned into a virtual global village. All this technological advancement created a huge network of information and a worthwhile platform of social media enabling people to express and disseminate ideas and knowledge throughout the world. So, mankind created a virtual cyber world—the cyberspace. Almost all parts of the world are in the grip of the internet and the social media became the ultimate and affordable tool to interrelate and communicate.

Every invention, particularly the one that works like air and water with no or very little barricades has its own disadvantages. Social media being convenient, affordable and with its huge benefits has spread wild crossing all barriers and has reached to every section of society irrespective of intellectual capability, social standing and economic status. This sweeping state of social media has made it greatly vulnerable to misuse. In a country like India where technology is running at a much higher pace than intellectual capability and economic upliftment of common people the cyberspace network definitely becomes more susceptible to all sort of evils, exploitation and unethical activities. However, the cyberspace, particularly its social media part is in a transitory phase vis a vis Indian political scenario, social and economic transition and necessarily require some more breathing time to acclimatize. Authorities have to evolve a mechanism of the moral code of conduct and integrity with absolute persuasion and educate the netizens regarding pros and cons of social media and fallouts of its misuse in the national interest. However, any compulsive disciplining, coercion or harrying will create a cyber dissent of much higher magnitude.

Anyways, coming out of the world and national cyber hangovers let us have a look on our own cyber-turf. Like rest of the subcontinent, we are the same stuff—tattered economy, evolving education and wavery politics. So, our rulers should not expect much out of us while enjoying the liberties of social media sites. Certainly, the administration is within its rights to use its good offices and administrative powers to discipline the over-enthusiastic and apparently more boisterous net users. But given the situation, we are in as an evolving democracy after a long tyranny our governments should envisage an all-around change in our mindset and attitude towards the judicious use of internet particularly the social media. Social media is a vast tool of expression and empowerment and will take considerable time to merge with the attitude of people who have suffered for centuries. Government is rightly and rationally upgrading its cybercrime network and for last many years these efforts have proved fruitful not only in curbing the crime but sensitizing the erring social media users. These graceful efforts within the parameters of law and the framework of fundamental rights of the citizen rightly and perceptibly define the government’s good intentions to uphold the basic right of freedom of expression of its citizens while curbing the nuisance.

Without generalizing the situation, a considerable number of netizens are intentionally or unwittingly misusing the social media either to denigrate the others or to boost their own narcissist identity and create a situation of chaos and confusion with distortions emerging out of their sick minds. As a whole, most of the social media users behave more appropriately. Restraining the unethical activities of few should not involve curbs on genuine net users. Any move to put harsher riders for social media users will create a situation of mistrust and will definitely prove counterproductive. Net users are to be tamed and trained in a way that they should understand the values of freedom of speech and expression in the right perspective and in the best interest of mankind and the nation. Authorities in no way should isolate a section of people to push a bitter pill of restrictions down their psyche, hurt their sentiments and self-respect. This isolation may hit someone’s right to freedom of expression but it will surely generate an atmosphere of uncertainty and a situation much closer to feudality. To be more specific government employees can be termed as public servants but they are also part of the public and public opinion. So, the government should have faith in them and handle according to the existing rules of conduct and behaviour.