Facebook is among the best things that the new generation has got on a platter to connect with each other; and youths have lapped it up with great enthusiasm. It revolutionized the way people communicated with each other, and there’s a personal touch to it.
However, Facebook lands in controversies often, as political games are played through it by interested groups, while fundamentalists and extremists too took to it like a duck to water. There have been checks and balances, of course, but there have also been accusations about the fairness of the social media set-up in regulating sensitive and controversial subjects.
The latest issue centers round what was obviously a “hate speech” by T Raja Singh and some other Hindutva leaders. When Sanghis open their mouths, the obvious targets are Muslims; and this time too, this happened. The complaint is that those in charge of FB at the regional level ignored the matter, rather than blocking such content. The issue warmed up after Wall Street Journal reported that the regional Facebook team was keen on obliging the government of the time led by the BJP so as to not hurt the social media group’s business and other interests.
Singh allegedly wanted Rohingya Muslim immigrants to be shot. He termed Muslims traitors and called for pulling down of mosques. The minority community is naturally incensed. Notably, Muslim youths form a large chunk of the social media activists across continents, and more so in the Asian and Middle Eastern regions. Pakistanis are rather in the forefront; and there have also been situations often of anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-American “hate” content being circulated via social media. Controls from the part of Facebook in all such respects must be uniform, rather than allowing one influential segment or the other to be given a free hand.
Every community, religion and society has a space to engage in this wider world, where co-existence is the central credo. In the age of social media, such platforms provide wholesome entertainment, disseminate a whole lot of information, and engage people in a whole lot of ways. It could be only for cynics to stray away from the mainstream of all these and engage in hate-mongering. Let us look at social media as a whole in positive ways, and keep the trouble-makers out of its sphere.
Societies across the world cannot live without religious pursuits; and societies in democracies cannot do without politics either. The bad apples need be ejected from the mainframe of political parties and saner elements encouraged.