Al Nahian Avro :
Social media platforms are now the extensively used communication tools of almost half of the people over the world and those have great popularity in Bangladesh. Nowadays many people mostly young of our country are accustomed to sleeping by getting tired of scrolling the feed of social media and are stirred up from sleep by its notification sounds. Most of the people having a phone or pc connected with the internet cannot take their mind off to lose in the labyrinths of social media as using it has been turned into a habit. And a situation like this point out clearly how much social media is engrained in our daily life.
Although a wide number of different social media platforms are used by Bangladeshi people, Facebook has been annexed top as more than 30 million people in Bangladesh use it. Now using Facebook doesn’t mean to be circumscribed by merely its boundary while it remains affiliated with different social sites and other websites.
Violence mediated by social media is rife in Bangladesh at this time. A few days ago, the brutal killing of Abrar Fahad, a Buetian and most recently the bloody clash between police and local Muslims of Bhola are two outbreaks of violence that were triggered by Facebook posts.
We all know a proverb “rumors travel faster than wind”, and this proverb has been embodied by social media where rumors are circulated within seconds which is always faster than wind speed. About 3 months ago, we witnessed how child lifting rumor was disseminated in our country through social media and how violently the general public was manipulated to kill an innocent woman just for mistaking her as a child lifter.
The penchant of cyber-crime through social media has become a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. Ease of using social platforms allows criminals to make a plot of crime within the shortest possible time. Several incidents of question paper leaking of public exams through social media in our country are not unknown by us.
In Bangladesh, a social site like Facebook has become a place of mockeries, memes, selfies, bullies, gossips, criticisms and those are creating conflicts in the family as well as in society. Aren’t social sites crammed with unsocial activities? Besides, social media has made Bangladeshi people aloof from mainstream news as most of the people prefer social media to other genuine sources for getting regular news. But they don’t know that they are surfing in the ocean of blunder things since it is a very place of inconsequential information. From a technological point of view, social sites are dynamic websites that mean users have full access here to alter any content as they wish. So why should we rely on the information on social media? The answer is nothing but obsession as we are obsessed with social media.
Social media is a reason of great distraction. It distracts people from their regular tasks and even creates addiction to it. Once I got annoyed on Facebook and went to LinkedIn, a professional social networking site to use my time productively. But I astounded when I had found memos, troll, hangout posts were posing the feed of a professional site like LinkedIn, and I again astounded getting that most of those posts are posted by Bangladeshi people. Then I concluded that there is a paradox hidden in Bangladeshi people’s concept about social sites. We are not willing to use our time productively rather we invest our time discussing some banal matters on social media for nothing. Everyone wants to talk here, everyone intends to establish their notion but no one accedes to take any responsibilities. It seems Bangladesh has a cornucopia of many politicians, lawyers, idealists, public leaders to give their statements through social sites but indeed they are not productive out of this virtual world. Productive and learned people don’t have spare time to spend on social media by doing meaningless activities. Then what should we do? Should we ban it?
Banning social media is not a reasonable solution because it helps us in many other ways. Some benevolent activities like calling for blood donation, collecting money for helpless people, educating students through live class and such like activities are effectively run by Facebook or other social media platforms. As a university student, always I have to get in touch with social media to get my class and class test schedules as well as other information since those are regularly posted on my department’s Facebook group. I collect my study documents through WhatsApp and stay connected with my teachers through Facebook, Messenger and LinkedIn, and this fact is more or less the same for other students also. Nowadays students get their math or other educational problems solved and even practice their speaking with foreign friends through social media, so how can we deny its conveniences?
It is feasible to create a sustainable environment of social media by maintaining its rules, regulations, and standards. But We don’t have authority over social sites which are being used in Bangladesh because they are controlled by other countries. For example, Facebook is controlled by the USA. So what are the solutions?
Social sites like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are banned by some countries, among them, we can talk about China And North Korea. China is using its own social media platform and North Korea is using its internal internet system for maintaining the social connection. So like them, Bangladesh needs its own social media platform to ensure a sound environment in social communication via the internet. So don’t you think it is feasible to create a social site like Facebook in Bangladesh by its people when international tech-giant like Google and Microsoft have hired a considerable number of Bangladeshi people for their company? Certainly, It will be feasible if the Govt. of Bangladesh wants it. And till then our Govt. should take some essential and exigent steps to regulate the subsisting social sites.
Let’s talk about which steps should be taken by Bangladesh Govt. to maintain a salubrious environment in social media as well as reduce the crime caused by it-Public awareness must be raised through mass communication and other possible ways to make people understand about the abridgment and drawback of using social media. Any crime through social media must be dealt with strict law and rapid action should be taken by law enforcement agencies against the accused criminals. Govt. should not only take crackdown against the main content creators who create sensitive, fake and provoking content but also should take against them who share those. An internal social media censor board should be established to censor sensitive content of social media. Fake accounts must be identified, if found, necessary penal activities should be taken because most of the crimes are mediated by fake accounts. Unethical hacking must be regarded as a serious crime. References must be added with any considerable statements and comments on social media.
We have to understand that social media is a double-edged sword. At its considerable pros, social media allows people of every layer of society to express their opinion independently. At its considerable cons, it allows everyone to share their discrete statements without proper cogitation. However, it is time to emancipate our country from the black shadow of social media.
(Al Nahian Avro, Student, Noakhali Science & Technology University)
