SOCIAL NETWORKING; THE ELEMENT OF MISPLACED POWER WITHIN

To start with I haven’t posted anything here since my first blog, this is not undesirable, it was my decision to stop blogging just after starting because I thought I couldn’t keep up given the level of concentration required by my other endeavours. But the last few past months has been a learning period for me, which influenced me to keep up with this blog. First I was inspired by some blogger who I follow, who I undoubtedly believe has got a much more hectic schedule than me and still keep up with his blog. Secondly I realized that there is an element of misplaced power in the advent of social networking; which led to the title of this blog.

The advent of social networking has made communication ever easier and affordable. With sites such as Facebook and twitter family, friends and love ones are just a click away. Isn’t this a wonderful thing? Yes of course it undoubtedly is, but there is something else to the advent of social networking; the element of misplaced power. Over the past months I have seen some of the  most bizarre updates and comments over the World’s most popular social networking site; Facebook. What is more surprising is that most of such appalling updates come from my own compatriots or may be it is because most of my Facebook friends are Gambians. I mean for example during the build-up to the elections in Gambia a comment to a post by one of my friends goes like “If you don’t like Yahya Jammeh, then he has done something to your family member or a friend”. I can’t put into context the meaning of such comments, well one thing is for sure, from her previous comments I believe the lady consider herself a fan of President Jammeh, but whether that is a compliment or criticism is debatable.

Ironically it might sound easy to say I don’t read such comments or befriend such people, but the problem with Facebook is that any comments to posts by your friends is visible on your news feed. Now the best option might be regarded as responding to any comment you didn’t go along with, but the problem is that you don’t have control over your own words over someone else’s post because they have the ability to delete your comment. I mean sometimes I get to the extreme of trying to delete my Facebook account because of such shocking comments and update’s that show up on my feed which I seem not to have much control over, Example, off late I experience getting updates on my page about friends posts to some groups even though am not a member of this groups and not interested in their updates, but here is where it get even more interesting, when I try to restrict my privacy settings from getting such group updates I found my self in the Facebook FAQ’s where it clearly states that you can get updates from some groups you are not a member of due to the fact that this groups are Public, now that’s rapt up . 

Furthermore anyone can open a Facebook account, create a group and post whatever they desire, what is the element of misplace power in this one may question. The element of misplaced power is that this people have access to a wide range of audience most of whom don’t intend to listen to them in the first place, this happens through friends or even friends friends connections. Even with Facebook’s privacy settings you have limited control over what is shown on your wall (with the exception of deleting it after it is already been posted), well that will seem too much to ask of Facebook given the fact that anyone who can see your picture on Facebook can also download them with just a right click of a mouse, creepy!

The element of misplaced power in social networking is that people can abuse the principles of freedom of speech by saying anything they wish without any bound to the law.  Much focus has been on Facebook because it is the most widely used social network platform currently, but perhaps another engine of misplaced power in the social networking platform is “YouTube” where users can post videos of racial, religious, sex, and disability discriminatory nature like this one here .To see that there is an element of misplaced power in the current use of social networking just try registering some association like one of those groups on Facebook or try directly quoting the message in  this YouTube Video  on BBC or CNN.

Bless.

AUTHORS NOTE:  The contents of this article are my opinions about the privacy settings of these companies from my personal experience of using them and it doesn’t represent the actual privacy policy of the companies mentioned. Contact the relevant company if in doubt.