The rise of social media back in 2003 with the launch of the social media platform Myspace which further opened up spaces for Facebook in 2004 and lot others, enabled every one of us to showcase our thoughts to the outer world. But as a consequence, it also scooped some major concerns of societal imbalance in freedom of speech.
Social media platforms gave freedom of speech to people, where people can express their liking or disliking. The urge to express feelings to the outer world isn’t a simple step forward in the evolution of human society, it started in the feudalist era to the dictatorships, where the freedom of speech was prohibited. A wish to express freely could cost a severe punishment or even loss of life. But at present, whether it’s the critics of the economic policy of a country or cultural change, the people have a lot on their minds which they could further deliver to the other members of the society. However, it has also negatively affected the society by benefiting the political and socially dominant groups of society to induce their ideologies through these platforms. Imagine a partisanship of political parties of a country, where social media become biased to put forward an agenda of a single party and hence it results more societal polarization.
It’s the people who need to get well aware that how they could stop becoming the media stooges. Consider taking third person view point, in this case, an international coverage of a view point which was nationally presented by social media. And one should try to be specific to write about an opinion, so it should be not the case that, listening to a single source of information and start making assumptions about that particular view. And last but not the least, choose a bunch of carefully selected words when writing about someone on social media, the basic purpose is to knock at the door, not to blast a door into parts.
ASIM NAVEED
LAHORE
