#mda20009 week7

Imagine this right, I sleep that night with a headache. I woke up the next morning still with a headache and also a sore throat. And I’m worryingly getting hotter (temperature-wise). So the first thing I did that day was to Google my symptom. The first search result shows me the answer. I couldn’t bother scrolling more down because there are too many complicated medical terms. So I took advice from the internet, turns out I just need some rest and drink enough water.

But anyway, you get what I’m trying to say. and you most likely have done the same thing. Googling symptoms and taking advice from the internet has been normalized today. At some point, some people would probably go to see the doctor just for a second opinion, because they already diagnosed themself on the internet. 

Although, finding/googling health information online isn't always harmful because it occasionally can point you in the right direction. But the thing is, the more you do research, you’ll find more complex medical terms and identify a serious illness that you may or may not have and it can cause unnecessary stress which then affects your mental health. Basically being paranoid.

"just drink HOT water laa and expose yourself to SUN then you can’t get covid lehh”

if it couldn’t be more obvious, social media is being used to share knowledge, especially during the time of the covid pandemic. Unfortunately, information about COVID is not the only thing that spread around, fake news and stupid/funny rumors were also being shared. I don’t wanna throw shades at anyone but, thanks to aunties and uncles in Malaysia the fake rumors spread across Malaysia smoothly like butter, like a criminal undercover, especially on their favorite platform, Fesbuk. The fake news was also helped spread by Parent-Teacher Association and the Kampung/Resident area Wassap group.

Some highlights of the funny rumor include: 

Special military helicopters will spray pesticide from the sky all over the country tonight, so please stay indoors. (one of the funniest rumors I’ve heard)

Vaccinated people contain a microchip and can emit Bluetooth signals. (my personal favorite)

Coronavirus pandemic will slow in the summer due to the heat.

Drinking hot water fights the coronavirus (spoiler alert: u will burn your tongue)

A good diet can prevent coronavirus (they just want u to be healthy)

Trolling can be defined as “creating discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community”. The social media trolls habitually say something provocative to other users to get attention (Hanson 2019). The social media conflicts emerge when the use of social medias is used wrongly, for example, by the ISIS to gain more followers and spread their propaganda. But in the other hand, it is also used to spread awareness and protest like the Women’s March in 2017 (Hiller 2019).

DOES INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA GOVERNANCE WORK?

In my own opinion, I do not think that the Internet governance work because I have seen effort from the government to reduce or prevent more trolling which involves life and death of users and illegal movement like ISIS. Plus, there are millions or billions of social media users and there are so much that they will not be able to handle. Not only that, even the social media platforms are changed from free speech at all costs to filtering and blocking the terrorists because of the policymakers’ pressure. Still, they are using it for violence and there are people who got caught but most of them are still freely doing it (Leetaru 2018). There is also effort by the government to launch anti-trolling website which offers sensible tips for people who are victims to online abuse, which called ‘The Stop Online Abuse site’. Looking at these efforts, clearly it only reduces the trolling and conflicts a little, because the issues are still going on and getting more aggressive by the day.

 PLATFORMS THAT ARE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO TROLLING & HATE

From my observation by using social media for like a decade, there are some platforms which are susceptible to trolling and hate. Platforms of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are more inclined to trolling and hate. I have seen people post and share body shaming photos of someone that they do not even know in Facebook for the sake of getting more crowd to laugh at the same thing who has the same opinion as them. There are also users who use it to instigate hate towards someone or some place which they do not like and users who only see their side of the story would back them up without even knowing the other side of the story. Twitter recent years has also become more of a toxic platform just because “they can say whatever they want, and it is their own account”. Just recently, Azfar Firdaus a ‘tweetfamous’ and who is also an Albino was body shamed for being Albino. He was invited to a local talk show as one of the three panellists to discuss about the topic of body shaming, which the guy who body shamed him was also a panellist. During the talk he confronted his body-shamer live on national TV for threatening him in the retweeted of an article of albinos being slaughtered in a country (Ridzaimi 2019). This issue has escalated where it causes people to feel depressed from these hates and eventually commit suicide. Although, social media is not the only factor that causes someone to feel depressed.

  PRODUCTIVE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLING

I think there are social media trolling that productive even to this day. It is not meant to harm or abuse another person or user, but only to take it as a humour. For example, James Fridman who is a digital artist would often photoshop people’s photos upon requests to funny photos in which he would posts it in Twitter for his followers to see. He has been doing this for quite long and his intention is for humour purpose. No body shaming, no abusing, nothing as such. People find it funny too (Lina 2016). I for one find his contents to be funny too. Contents like these are kind of positive if you ask me.

Trolling in social media can be very harmful if it is intended to be offensive, abusive and humiliate other people. It affected people’s life in a way that may cause death if it is very serious. People should also take note not to respond to those who trolls them and totally ignore them.

  References:

Hanson, J 2019, Trolls and Their Impact on Social Media, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, viewed 28 October 2018 <https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media>.

Hiller, P 2019, How Social Media is Changing Conflict, Peace Science Digest, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://peacesciencedigest.org/social-media-changing-conflict/>.

Leetaru, K 2018, Can We Finally Stop Terrorists From Exploiting Social Media?, Forbes, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/10/09/can-we-finally-stop-terrorists-from-exploiting-social-media/#35bbf8416d80>.

Ridzaimi, S 2019, Epic Moment M’sian Albino Confronts His Bully on LIVE TV Who’s Ironically A Panelist for Body-Shaming, World of Buzz, viewed 28 October 2019 <https://www.worldofbuzz.com/epic-moment-msian-albino-confronts-his-bully-on-live-tv-whos-ironically-a-panelist-for-body-shaming/>.