Some years ago, Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia agitated the elite and aroused their aggressive behavior. In turn, the elite agitated ordinary Ethiopians. Elsewhere in the region, there was similar agitation for war, further fueled by overly ambitious leaders such as the rulers of the UAE. Each conflict consumed many people. And it has not stepped. The ritual need to continue, regardless.
Meanwhile, the West had its own bonfires, in places like Ukraine. Will the Middle East be spared? Of course not. Warmongers were ready, with a finger on the trigger—or a button to push. Humanity is in a precarious situation. Not many are looking at the notice, the warning.
Some wars are fought with expensive, sophisticated weapons; others have reverted to primitive ways. Swords, axes and spears. Death and destruction is all the same. An a medieval Arab poet said, “Whoever is killed by the sword, can also be killed by another weapon.” The means may differ, but death is all the same. The outcome is the same: poverty, hunger, suffering, and extreme anxiety.
Conventional, or modern, warfare is no longer the only known kind of war familiar to humanity. Wars were always physical, ever since human beings learned to kill. Their purpose was mainly to deny enemies, whether real or perceived, the chance to live longer.
Thanks to technology, there are now more inflated egos, and warmongers have been endowed with an expanded scope and creativity to inflict the maximum damage on life and property.
But killing people physically has become boring. Crippling brains is in.
Let’s make our enemies walk like zombies. At least they can entertain the world. And it will certainly inspire more people to produce ample supply of excitingly entertaining content. All is free, and no personal repercussions. The culprit is free to act whimsically.
And it has become free-for-all.
Social platforms seem to have stopped monitoring the safety of the content they provide, or enable others to do so—never mind its quality or ethics. You want to publish lewd content? No problem, post it. You have clips of youth pulling each other’s hair in school corridors that you smugly want to show the world? Go ahead; all the green lights are on.
Do you have clips of girls in already-poked, torn short minis fighting until what was left of the Adam-and-Eve kind of cover is further shredded? And you want to share it? Of course, bring it on.
Want to see police brutality? Something you instigated, or encouraged a moron to be part of it?
There are enough rebels and vagabonds strolling the streets, sniffing for trouble, reckless drivers behind the wheel, always on the lookout for someone to provoke. Cops may not be perfect angels, or just perfect. Spot them quickly; they are abundantly there, in every corner, in their thousands. A few would snap easily. Try them.
Or make fun of people. Mock them. Embarrass poor workers as if they were public figures you had to monitor. Maybe aggressively protest against them as if they owe you something!
Target poor, street vendors, pull the rag from under whatever they are selling. Then watch the poor vendor weep helplessly while you laugh for the good clips you shot. Post it on any trashy page, the platforms love it. After all it pulls traffic of animals pretending to be human beings, just because they walks on two legs. Like kangaroos who has that.
For those who fought for years to promote the noble goals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, it is disheartening to watch those achievements being willfully eroded. If people’s’ noble efforts contributed, in any way, towards the accelerating of the erosion of noble values, we either live with it or learn to embrace it.
They say it is a tax on modernity. Due must be paid on freedoms that others pompously give to the riffraff.
Decency, respect, empathy, and morality are out of fashion. Those who advocated protecting the now-crippled freedom might need an atonement. The clergy will decide the fee.
By God! Was all that human energy wasted for nothing, as if needlessly—misused to empower the social-media rascals?
And the smart alecks have an answer: “It’s the algorithm, stupid!” Al Khwarzmi must be turning in his grave.
Algorithm! Don’t they know the term “cooking the books”? It was not said in vain. If accounting figures can be cooked, what is to prevent algorithms from being cooked? You might even find instructions for cooking the recipe on the Internet. It costs only a simple button pressing skill.
You know, nothing is totally innocent—or neutral. Why should it be, why should anyone be?
Dogs are cute and kind, and so on. But erase the picture of a domesticated dog you have in mind. let’s talk about shepherd dogs, trained to be brutal. Trained to be like monsters to protect the herd. Dog are a product of their training. Train it to be nice and share the bed or sofa with you, inside the house, and you may get a cat pretending to be a dog. Train it to be a fighter, scary, and you may get a tiger instead.
Who trains social-media platform-designers? And how are they trained? Are they trained on ethics, morality, even to abide by a civil law?
And there is no oversight—or not enough—let’s say, there is none. All the same. If there is, it must be a shy one, insignificant. Not meant to be enforced, development gets the priority. The rest is formalities.
See! Social media is stripping humanity of its freedom-sensing skin. Humanity’s empathy, charity, and decency are being eroded fast—whatever is left of them.
And it is not like a snake shedding its skin that can be replaced by another grown skin underneath. Once stripped, human skin leaves people appearing as ugly as a skinned animal hanging on a pole inside a butcher’s shop. Naked, with no cover.
I never thought there will come a day when I be bothered by excessive freedom, though censorship scares me to death. I have been a victim of that all my meaningful life.
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