“Social Media is not a subset of the internet. Social Media is the internet”- Unknown
We couldn’t have expressed it better ourselves. Social Media has become an inextricable aspect of one’s personal, professional and social life. It enables individuals to connect with friends and family, despite geographical differences. It helps bring together people with similar interests, motives and goals, and in obtaining opinions on different issues. Additionally, it can be used immensely in cases of natural disasters and raising awareness about certain events and causes.
Having said that, social networking, as a coin, has two sides. With different kinds of people gaining access to the world of social media, it has become a free ground for cyber abuse to take place. Some examples are hacking into user accounts, and finding and posting fake pictures so the abuser appears as someone he or she is actually not. Cyber bullying is a lot like real-life bullying wherein bullies often add users to their online network of friends, with the intention of being malicious. The bully then begins to harass the user in much the same way he or she would harass a victim in person through the use of teasing, derogatory remarks and put-downs.
In a world where information travels faster than the speed of light, the incidences of abuse and bullying are fast on the rise. In this regard, we at Centre for Social Research, in collaboration with Twitter, are conducting a Tweet Chat today on the issue of “Abuse vs Annoyance on Social Media.” We will be sharing five questions every 5 minutes from our Twitter handle (CSR_India) and panelists will be replying their responses, using the hashtag #TweeSurfing. Our panelists are renowned journalist Rana Ayyub; noted equal rights activist Harish Iyer; Ruchita Shah, founder of First Moms Club; Dhruv Arora, digital communications manager at Centre for Policy Research, India and Amitabh Kumar, Head of Media and Communications at CSR. This tweetchat is initiated to get substantial recommendations on dealing with issues like cyber bullying, trolling and also, focusing on the significance of cyber etiquette. You can read about our earlier TweetChat on Community Standards here.
Do join us today at 3 pm IST, and engage in a fun and engaging discussion on the relevant issue of community standards!
Discuss this article on Facebook
