Hello everyone. How are you all? Good evening. I believe social media is a very important part of all of your lives. The same goes for me as well. Even though I'm not that much into scrolling through different apps for watching those videos, which people always get hooked on. I have somehow been able to stay away from that, but I use social media as a means of communication and while that being obvious these days in my country, specifically, social media is more reliable of a new source than traditional TV. While that sounds comical it is true. In fact, the previous government in my country had a very tough time navigating these new social media news outlets and sources instead of traditional reporters. And I think the same is true for most countries around the world.
Social media is a very off tool at the moment and it being available to the most people around the world has the unyielding force of reaching everyone in the shortest amount of time. Now countries as well started to use social media to their benefit. Because nothing has been out of politics. In my neighbor country Myanmar, social media has been used to push propaganda for one part of the political landscape of that country while leveling accusations to the other part which are inaccurate to say the least. Then we have seen all the social media apps trying to censor pro-Palestinian posts, photos and videos and hashtags while promoting pro-israeli content. All in an effort to show that Israel is the good person here and that Palestinians are the terrorists. I can pull several more examples of this sort, but perhaps the most contextual at this point in life can be my own country's example from last year. Last year there was primarily a protest to mitigate the job portals in government jobs in my country. Which the government failed to approach in a diplomatic manner. Rather they exerted strength by the different law enforcements of the country. Which was a big mistake on their part as old list led to a mass uprising and the eventual fall of that particular government. Now how is social media connected to all this? It is connected because the media both print and cable were bought off or somehow influenced by the ruling party. So there was never the correct news being aired in those news outlets. So the whole thing, demonstration requests, announcements, public gatherings, and organizations all took place in social media. Facebook was the sole place where people could actually gather and plan their next move. The situation went so out of hand that the government had to shut off the internet for an entire week. Eventually, all this couldn't save them and people kept on gathering and sharing their opinions on Facebook and Twitter later on, which led to people not being deceived by the pet media of the government, rather news and messages from people who are actually on the ground during those conflicts.
As much as Facebook and Twitter helps the people of Bangladesh to coordinate everything and take it to the government itself, social media has also been used to spread propaganda at the same time and what we can learn from this is that there will always be both white and black. And social media can actually show you both depending on how carefully you browse and what you see and what you don't. But in the event of a certain narrative being played to you and you're expected to accept, we all should verify first and then take the reins.