Social media : a boon or bane
Answers
Explanation:
Social media has facilitated a lot in reshaping communication industry and redefining the ways in which we communicate and express ourselves. Social media engages people constantly and accumulate everyone in some or the other trending activity
Explanation:
Social media has brought the world so close that political and geographical boundaries are crumbling. Time may come when netizenship may surpass citizenship. The more people-to-people communication is, the more is the strengthening of relationships. This is the basic principle of the political concept of nation-building. In an information society, bonds grow stronger. We are now heading towards a world-order of Net-state or states. In between, an ominous development of misuse of social media has cropped up.
A serious problem is that the spread of misinformation can severely impact the decision-making process. This is because we are closer in the virtual world but far away in the physical world. It was way back in 1993, a cartoon appeared in the New Yorker with the caption, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. Digital culture has become so widespread that whatever appears on the Net, is readily accepted. Cross-check is almost nil. It is a dangerous trend. The children today believe more in the popular search engine than anything else. That is why fake news goes viral almost instantly through social media forwards. It has a cascading effect. Not only the problem is of magnitude but also in not being able to find its source also.
In India, general elections are in progress. They are being conducted in phases because of the vastness of the area and high population density in some parts. Every political party is using social media to spread information on its policies and programs. It will be unfortunate if it, later on, turns out to be remotely controlled misinformation campaign. The worrying aspect is that if in a mature democracy like the USA, people can be misled, it is relatively easy in younger democracy like India.
The point which is quite clear is that social media misinformation can overturn a democratic process. It is antithetical to human rights for which the UNO stands for.
Presently the internet and its allied subjects are regulated by ICANN. It is an agency within the USA. There is a need for placing it in the hands of a broad-based agency like UNO or one of its affiliated bodies. A suggestion is in circulation that the internet should be placed under the supervision of IMF but at the same time, there is an apprehension that disturbing the status quo may result in fragmentation of the existing system. USA, EU and China may split apart. Maybe. But misinformation warfare is dangerous than conventional warfare. It has the potential to create a slow-paced disaster.
Does this proposal fit into the existing international framework? Article 1 of the UN charter sets out four purposes for the creation of the UNO. Disruptive use of social media fits into Article 1, particularly, third purpose, namely, “To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all …”. The proposal fits at least into this particular provision.
Social media is an important tool put into the hands of an ordinary person. He or she can express views without going to conventional means of mass communication like TV, radio, etc. Of all the creatures, only human beings have the faculty of expressing themselves through language, written or spoken. It is for this purpose, freedom of speech is the most basic rights protected in all democratic setup. But at the same time, it should not eat away other rights through the spread of misinformation. A coordinated regulation is necessary so that it is put to good use, not the bad.