Social media is like a deceptive and highly dangerous minefield on the battlefield , one wrong step by the one who plants it or the one who tries diffuse it and it blows up everything including the ones who fiddles it . It is a dangerous game akin to a gun in a monkey’s hands. During a recent visit to Mardan to say goodbye to a friend. We discussed about how social media can become irresponsible in spreading disinformation. We talked about how some people desecrate national assets like the national anthem and national songs through social media memes and parodies , which hold sentimental value for older generation of Pakistanies during difficult times when the nation’s morale was at its lowest ebb.
The misuse of social media can be a recipe for disaster, as seen in a recent incident in the UK where disinformation led to race-motivated riots. An investigation revealed that a Pakistani freelancer, Farhan Asif, was not the primary source of the false information but had copy-pasted it from another social media post which spread like wild fire .
This highlights the need for responsible social media use and fact-checking to prevent such incidents. While we have the cybercrime act and FIA cybercrime wing, we direly need a public ombudsman to hold social media users accountable. This ombudsman should comprise a panel of impartial judges, including apolitical journalist, jurist, cleric, civil society member, ISPR, and foreign office representatives, to cross-examine social account holders giving them ample chance to explain their motives and the justification for any particular actionable post found objectionable .
Offenders should be issued a yellow card for the first offense, an orange card for the second, and a red card for the third for persistent non compliance , resulting in three months imprisonment, blocked ID card, and international travel ban for three years. This will promote responsible conduct among social media users and its regulators and protect our country’s vital socio-economic interests from politically motivated and biased propaganda and disinformation.
Nevertheless, this forum be spared to be yet another tool in the hands of politicians for victimisation of political opponents and should be credible forum where responsible citizens journalism is promoted across various social media platforms, as opposed to either blocking them through firewalls or illegal detentions that earns the country bad name internationally, yet it also miserably failed to control social media through such coercive measures as we fastly enter into the new era of artificial intelligence that demands we change our mindset from controlled media to uncensored news where criticism is analysed as a shortcoming to be proactively addressed through logical and open discourse through public forum than reactive and secretive response that has little or no moral or legal justification to protect an individual or institution that deviates from its mandate for vested interests . .
