Originally published in The Rationalist, Vol I, Issue I, Jun-Aug, 2012 - http://rationalistpk.org/2012/06/miracle-of-water-spring-under-obls.html
The influence of online social media has significantly presented its importance in the second decade of 21st century. The twitter and facebook lead revolutions in middle east have shook the world. Moreover, big guns tweeting directly on a common person's computer updating him every second is another example of revolution. The communication had never been so effective in human history.
However, recently it was shocking to see an extremism promoting facebook page with 160K likes. The page is based in Pakistan and is a representative of the Zaid Hamid type mindset. On the contrary, I could gather only 98 people on RSOP page in a year of its launch. This was a very serious construction of an extremist trend accross the internet -- haunting teenagers on online media, promoting intolerance and conspiracy theories.
There were two things that can be related to this effect. Most of the people sitting on online media belong to youth group of Pakistan. These are reactionary teenagers who have been continuously fed up with conspiracy theories since their inception and whose education is based upon the literature developed from Nasim Hijazi mindset. They find reason as an enemy and have been made quite adverse to the notions of tolerance and moderation. One can find them saying 'Subhan Allah' on every morphed artistic Islamic images of natural objects. And when someone reasons with them, all of them would be found cursing the person and issuing political and religious decrees against him. The halfbaked knowledge and less understanding equipped with stealth armour of fundamentalism is quite evident from their behaviors.
The sms generation endorses every fake news story, irrational claim and illogical thought without much ado on the grounds of being religiously faithful, hence accepting everything they occur to. On the other hand the makers of this fake information are equally committed and productive. One can find glorifications of Hitler to Zaid Hamid on these platforms.
Whereas, the educationists and the moderates term social media as a waste of time. They are not synchronizing their thoughts with the modern technological trends due to various reasons. Most of the people are busy and are limited to a very small area of influence. They are reluctant to develop an effective firewall of reason and education in front of online fraudulents and hate mongers. They are neglecting the influence of online/social media on the psychological thinking pattern of this naive, very huge and important group of our society and leaving them a prey to ZH variants.
We at RSOP have started this online movement to create a contrary and rational discourse on online media and we invite all the concerned people to contribute and raise the voice against this bigotry. RSOP finds it a moral duty of the learned people to educate the neglected breed in a way that is more effective. For us, this is the call of the hour.
The influence of online social media has significantly presented its importance in the second decade of 21st century. The twitter and facebook lead revolutions in middle east have shook the world. Moreover, big guns tweeting directly on a common person's computer updating him every second is another example of revolution. The communication had never been so effective in human history.
However, recently it was shocking to see an extremism promoting facebook page with 160K likes. The page is based in Pakistan and is a representative of the Zaid Hamid type mindset. On the contrary, I could gather only 98 people on RSOP page in a year of its launch. This was a very serious construction of an extremist trend accross the internet -- haunting teenagers on online media, promoting intolerance and conspiracy theories.
There were two things that can be related to this effect. Most of the people sitting on online media belong to youth group of Pakistan. These are reactionary teenagers who have been continuously fed up with conspiracy theories since their inception and whose education is based upon the literature developed from Nasim Hijazi mindset. They find reason as an enemy and have been made quite adverse to the notions of tolerance and moderation. One can find them saying 'Subhan Allah' on every morphed artistic Islamic images of natural objects. And when someone reasons with them, all of them would be found cursing the person and issuing political and religious decrees against him. The halfbaked knowledge and less understanding equipped with stealth armour of fundamentalism is quite evident from their behaviors.
The sms generation endorses every fake news story, irrational claim and illogical thought without much ado on the grounds of being religiously faithful, hence accepting everything they occur to. On the other hand the makers of this fake information are equally committed and productive. One can find glorifications of Hitler to Zaid Hamid on these platforms.
Whereas, the educationists and the moderates term social media as a waste of time. They are not synchronizing their thoughts with the modern technological trends due to various reasons. Most of the people are busy and are limited to a very small area of influence. They are reluctant to develop an effective firewall of reason and education in front of online fraudulents and hate mongers. They are neglecting the influence of online/social media on the psychological thinking pattern of this naive, very huge and important group of our society and leaving them a prey to ZH variants.
We at RSOP have started this online movement to create a contrary and rational discourse on online media and we invite all the concerned people to contribute and raise the voice against this bigotry. RSOP finds it a moral duty of the learned people to educate the neglected breed in a way that is more effective. For us, this is the call of the hour.
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