Leaders and activists of the July-August uprising demonstrated their organisational ability courtesy of social sites. The tech-savvy new generation was a few steps ahead of the establishment in making the most of the digital knowledge to the extent of skirting around the internet blackout the government opted for at the last moment. So, here is a most powerful medium that can be used to make and unmake a person, a community, a company and even a seemingly mighty government.
Unfortunately, the powerful medium is not always used for accomplishing a most noble mission. This powerful weapon is abused at random and a hyperactive community of netigens (members of internet or simply net) has emerged. Thanks to the social sites, there is no bar to posting comments. In the journalistic parlance, posts are those articles or post-editorials or columns that get published in the editorial page. Now everybody who can write a few sentences, no matter if those are correct or incorrect, coherent or incoherent, meaningful or meaningless, has the freedom to get their contents circulated as 'posts' on the social platforms. Yes, some share posts simply because they have come across something funny, entertaining, deeply emotional and humane offering an enlightening lesson or knowledge to be beware of anything bad or dangerous. Some even try their hands in a foreign language they cannot consider themselves of its novice. One feels pity for them.
Today not all of the new breed of netigens are innocent to make their posts public. Credit goes to many for trolling, shaming, body shaming, public shaming and cyber bullying. These are lexicons that have either evolved with the new technology or added new meaning to the conventional sense. Trolling is precisely meant to provoke, harm reputation, upset and cause anger or emotional distress. There is no harm when controversial issues are posted to elicit sober reactions from others. If the participants dispassionately analyse the issue to air their views in sober languages, it turns out to be a logical exercise.
However, when the all-powerful users raise the controversy under the garb of sugar-coated lies to draw attention with an ulterior motive of harming others, their contents can cause social upheavals of unprecedented order. Such contents become viral because of their vitriolic nature. The fact is that the subscribers do not feel the need to verify the truth or the authenticity of the contents. Thus the posts go viral, yet another word taking the net world by storm. There are people who would do everything, even if it means self harm, to go viral. No, 'on the spree' would come nowhere to the meaning carried by 'viral'.
That people are getting increasingly judgmental is credited to the unlimited liberty the netigents enjoy. They derive a sadistic pleasure from ruining someone socially and emotionally. Their target can be a non-descript person, a poet, a writer, a social or political leader or even an advertisement of a company or brand product. Add to this the hurting of religious sentiment through any published material. Some would not mind digging out selective comments or paragraphs from a book to denigrate a writer or poet long deceased. In case of any propaganda against a business entity, the collective boycott of products can unmake it.
It seems there is a devious celebration of minds gone awry. Judging people without knowing the full story or the background is a dangerous ploy. The trial is held on the social platform's court where there is no chance of defending the rights of the accused. No law court would pass the judgment without hearing the defendant's version. So the infringement on others' rights goes on. The aberration of sharing and enriching knowledge goes on without any let-up.
This is a dangerous tendency and society has yet to raise a strong defence against trolling, shaming and cyber bullying. There is law against cyber bullying but its application is conspicuous by its absence. There are several instances of trolling and cyber bullying leading not just to mental breakdown but also suicides. Usually girls in their teens and adolescence fall victim to such online provocation. But in certain cases mobs are created to launch even physical attacks. The latest victim to such digital aggression has been the former chief election commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda. Such attacks can take place only when society loses its poise and sanity. Unless strong legal actions can be unleashed and social resistance put in place to arrest such tendencies, society stands to plunge in deep darkness where jungle laws prevail.
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