It’s the time where India is treading towards its national elections 2019. We witness, the political environment is heating up with many political leaders switching their loyalty from one political party to another. While some politicians have made a big show after quitting their respective parties, others have kept it low-key. Naturally, we can witness jam-the-ram political posts on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, twitter etc. I see some people going overboard by forwarding / posting strongly opinionated posts which are difficult to authenticate or verify. It is leading to information heat on the common man and thus influencing common man towards incorrect decisions.
Political arena:
- Rival political parties are now entering into political alliances embracing people to believe upon.
- Noted political leaders are changing their long associated political parties to cope up with their latest change.
- Every change is happening for a perceived self-benefit or a targeted benefit or simply put for their survival.
- There is general agreement among political parties that social media will have significant influence on the outcome of the forthcoming elections. The spread of smart phones has widened internet access and magnified the impact of social media.
- There exists political party entities / groups / platforms who push political posts to the people who follow them. A common man can unsubscribe to (or) unfollow the groups if he/she is not interested in it.
- There are so many social platform groups created on the basis of friends, families, culture, education etc. We witness some group members of the said group forwarding strongly opinionated posts about political parties / individuals which are difficult to authenticate or verify. This is the area where a common man cannot unsubscribe to that social group because the purpose for which the group got created was different. Group Administrators are having difficult task to manage and address such situations. This is where a common voter is stressed and sometimes misled by unauthenticated posts / videos.
Social media has come to connect people for a prosperous tomorrow, not to mislead people for worse. As a responsible citizen, we can certainly share our opinions on political arena on social media, as long as the language of the post/ video is healthy and authentic. This way, we can use our freedom of speech for the purposes that ignites prosperity around. But we cannot misuse social media for different causes/ reasons. Let each of us apply self-restraint in reading / forwarding unauthenticated political posts/videos which are difficult to verify. Let us speak good language and encourage healthy language around. Especially in friends , family and culture related social groups, let us stop promoting strongly worded unauthenticated political posts. Every citizen can cast their vote to the party of their like. Social media's information heat should not influence common man towards incorrect decisions. The fact remains, for many generations, common man has to earn food and shelter for his family with his own sweat, what-so-ever political party comes to power. It is the tax paying class who is also showing real national patriotism in this capital market. Let us promote good and healthy positive aspects around.
Time has come where each individual applies self-restraint on social media while forwarding unauthenticated strongly worded political posts simply because most of the political changes are happening for a perceived "self-benefit".