Cyber Poisoning

This completes the trilogy of  " Cyber Scenario"

There were a lot of celebrations when the 'draconian' 66A was repealed. While freedom of expression is enshrined in the constitution, the fact often missed is - It comes with its own share of responsibilities as well. In cyberworld, everybody is a reporter and journalist. Not that the professionals (journalist or reporters) were doing a great job either. But this new medium has taken things beyond limits. It just takes one click or a share or retweet and you are a reporter! There is no legal way to prevent this and moral etiquettes have so far failed to prevent spread of malicious information.

The other scary thing is - You may still have ways to legal recourse if the source or target is an influential person or an entity. But what about those unclaimed posts that make their way on our timelines which target a section of our society albeit indirectly or use them as means to drive an agenda? There are lots of 'unofficial' handlers which enable plausible deniability.  There are many out there which target groups (religions, castes or professions) in general. Nobody is answerable for the authenticity of the information.  Unfortunately people fall prey to the propaganda.  Devious means are often used to make the information look authentic. So a synonymous account to a known entity, color of the profile picture (e.g. saffron) easily trick people into believing that the source is authentic.

Also, at times the protagonist of the information (individual or group) is nowhere to be heard or seen. It’s the self-proclaimed cyber lawyers who play the plaintiff, the lawyer and the judge! All in the name of “Freedom of speech “! And we cry about MSM! If MSM were a bullet that kills people, this is arsenic dissolved in air and water-Far more deadly and poisonous.

An argument often presented is, well you don’t read it or ‘like’ it if you don’t want to. If this were true, the same argument should apply for pornography. Why do we ban online pornography when we allow the unabashed rape of our social fabric to be openly exhibited and at times even glorified?

If a survey were to be conducted in future about causes leading to deterioration of humans as a ‘society’ , I would say this ‘cyber poisoning’ would score much above other reasons like religion, politics  and materialism – essentially because all these and other vices combined  tend to use cyber poisoning!.

Having said that, I have an undeterred belief in the intrinsic goodness of humanity as a race. Trust that would win over these momentary aberrations .It always has…….

Act Responsibly