Rumours and Social Media
The Messenger of Allah Prophet Mohammad (saw) said: “It is enough lying for a man to speak of everything that he hears.” (Muslim)
Younus Rashid
According to the Oxford dictionary, the word “rumour” means ‘a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth’. In the world of modern technology when there are such a platforms called social media where almost every single person is connected with each other, and are sending and spreading messages and other things there may be a chance of such things to happen.
A couple of years before such type of a high-intensity rumour spread all over the valley. Panic gripped the valley right after parents came back from a health centre after providing polio drops to their children and soon after news spread like wildfire that few children died after taking a polio drop.
Later on, when the fact was ascertained it turned out to a rumour and totally false news. There are numerous such examples were people came to know about something and tried to spread however, later on, all these news turned out false and fabricated.
Let’s analyse what the Quran says in Chapter 49 verse 6 “O you who believe! If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest you harm people unwittingly, and afterward become full of repentance for what you have done”.
A hadith; The Messenger of Allah Prophet Mohammad (SAW) said: “It is enough lying for a man to speak of everything that he hears” (Muslim). So, the Quran and Last Messenger of Allah have already told to ascertain the truth before spreading it. Meanwhile, despite knowing the fact that spreading unauthenticated information which has no sources is prohibited and is against the law of the country, but yet we have rumour mongers in this society. Police have booked many rumour mongers under section 505 of Indian penal code in past and are continuously keeping an eye of such issues.
Nevertheless, it is a famous quote “Rumours are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots”. But sometimes a reasonable man tends to become a rumour monger. Now the question is how? Let’s elaborate. When we use an application which is present in almost everyone phone that is WhatsApp. What tends to happen is that as soon as we receive any news item, we in no time forward the same to other people without knowing the or without confirming the news from a reliable source. In this way, we all become a part of the rumour mongering chain.
Now, the question remains how to tackle this menace? We need to remain calm and not to forward all such mess to other people. Because isn’t our duty. The important point is that we add our mobile number in numerous WhatsApp and Facebook groups or we do like unofficial and those pages which are run by people with ‘idiotic’ mindset. They just copy the content from any portal and paste the same on their Facebook page. We need to remain only in those WhatsApp groups which are monitored/run by journalists or by any responsible person or official.
The second point we need not like or follow those Facebook pages which are not registered nor have any authority to run the same. Like/follow those pages which have a blue badge for receiving news.
(The author is B.A English (Hons) student at GDC Boys Anantnag and can be reached at [email protected])
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