Gone are the days when people had to wait till morning to read the newspaper and know the breaking news through the headlines. Every important update can now be seen just by surfing through social media. Social media has made news consumption quick and accessible. Every latest news goes viral within minutes. But, if the news is fake, the speed of social media acts as a disadvantage rather than an advantage. Fake news through social media can create panic and chaos among the people. It also has become a hub of spreading hate, propaganda and cyber bullying. So the question arises, should social media be unrestricted?
Social media has become the voice of the people. For instance, in the month of August last year, unemployment in India was 8.35% according to the Centre For Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). If we have a look at the mainstream news channels, only a handful of them had covered the issue of rising unemployment. Whereas it was a major issue, thousands of people had lost their jobs in the lockdown.
So the people were left with only one way to voice their problems, that is citizen journalism. In the present context, social media is the weapon of citizen journalism. Issue of unemployment was raised through social media platforms like Twitter between August- September. Many other issues of grass-root level were addressed using social media, especially last year when social media usage increased during the lockdown. Even the protest of Black Lives Matter started with a Facebook post by Darnella Frazier who had filmed the video of George Floyd’s death . This post triggered a wave of protests in USA and solidarity from different parts of the world. So if this platform becomes heavily restricted, citizens will be left with no other option to voice their opinions and give feedback to those in power. Social media helps people unite and dig out solutions for the problems collectively, but if it gets restricted then only the powerful will be able to control it, and will no longer be a public sphere where people can discuss issues freely bolstering the public participation in a democracy.
On social media, we as citizens are the producers as well as the consumers of the content. So there is no credibility of the news that goes viral. Moreover, people blindly believe what they read on social media. From home remedies to cure corona virus to fake date-sheet of exams, everything goes viral on social media within minutes. According to a survey by Social Media Matters and Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics, 69% of the people who participated in the survey received fake news about Covid-19 and the lockdown. Major sources of fake news included WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. After the Pulwama attack of 2019, there were a series of misinformation and fake news going around social media, using morphed images and videos. These fake news often create panic among citizens, it is important that the social media users should be vigilant and understand the fact that anything and everything that appears on the social media may not be true. There are certain fact checkers including the PIB (Press Information Bureau) Fact Check that clarifies fake news, but only a few people consider fact checking before forwarding the messages on social media. Earlier, WhatsApp had limited the number of forwards to five people to avoid quick spread of fake news. Twitter used the feature to flag “fake news” on the wrong information about covid-19. Another major problem is hate on social media.
People negatively impact the minds of other people through spreading hate, lies and propaganda which has a direct impact on the minds of the readers. Often a particular ideology or community is targeted with immense hate on social media. This hate among the citizens can harm the social order of a nation. Cyber bullying and trolling people has become common on social media platforms, especially among the teenagers. We have seen a number of times where a social media mob attacks and abuses a particular target. Fake Accounts of celebrities and even common people are made to demean their image. Children and teenagers get exposed to the negative side of social media easily. There is an age restriction on most of the social media platforms, but young kids use them by falsifying their age. Some of them are too young to understand how to handle social media and what its implications can be. For instance, kids make fake accounts of their friends just for fun and often bully others using the internet, but it can later harm the person much more than they have thought or intended. It is important to educate the people about the responsibilities and ethics while using any social media platform. Such actions of cyber crime require some restrictions, because if hate and negativity goes unrestricted , it can not only harm an individual but poison the society as a whole.
So it is difficult to have a definite answer about social media restrictions. As any other media platform, social media too has its own advantages and disadvantages. But restrictions imposed on social media should be very much balanced. Such that the restrictions are only to stop cyber crimes and not to suppress the voice of the people. Restrictions should be to curb the harmful content from social media, the restrictions are welcomed only as long as they are reasonable restrictions. But if social media totally falls in the hands of the powerful, then they may misuse it, and restrict every voice against them or of a different opinion. Because in today's context, social media is the voice of the voiceless. It is tough to strike the right balance between restrictions and freedom on social media. Therefore, it is important that the citizens use it responsibly and embrace its positive uses rather than promoting the negative ones.
Thus the citizens are the ones who can decide, whether to use social media as a boon or a bane.