In a midst of global tension regarding
recent killings of American ambassador over what was globally
available in Internet on a very sensitive topic, a question quite
important than current issues lies ahead of us. Are our technological products mature
enough that we can let them affect ourself? Should our product be based on
only one school of thought denying all others just because they
disagree with prevalent ones? Isn't the purpose of technological
advances in form of global media a common good for all?
World is fast connecting thanks to
recent usage of mass media in form of Internet. Though Internet has
been around a decade now, its use has been seen global only recently
thanks to mobile world that allowed cheaper technology into hands of
even poor of underdeveloped nations and also the rise of social media
of all interesting forms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. So for
the first time its not hard for anybody in any part of the world to
connect to a person from any other part of world. With this, ideas
and views tend to get shared in a very rapid sense. It does not takes
big marketing agendas to do that. It should have the right
combination to attract mass and there you go. There are enormous
example of this with Gangnam
style being worth to be noted. A Korean song whose lyrics rarely mean
anything to a non-korean yet became an instant hit worldwide. It is
the first Korean song to top iTunes
chart. Do you think a global mass of korean population or biggest
marketing propaganda of Psy helped generate that demand? Definitely
not. It was a global network of interconnection in form of social
bond through facebook, twitter and other social services that helped
boost it. All being said on positive side, this blog however deals
with possible negative sides of it. Are we ready enough for this
global connection? Are our psychological thinking flexible enough
that it will allow us to break the age old bondage of traditional
thinking that we are used to? Are we democratic enough globally to
accept other people feelings equally and yet defend ours in a truly
democratic way? Recent events show exactly the opposite.
The so called movie “Innocence of
Muslims” whose trailer
released in Internet brought about an unexpected effect involving
life of few people including an American ambassador.
It also added to the pile of Muslim frustration towards USA and
Israel in this precarious period where people are already
frustrated/petrified by either civil war (Syria) or recent revolution
(Egypt, Libya). Lets not discuss about the movie or trailer as it
should be known to almost ever creature in this planet now, thanks to
the global media. Was this a real movie from some lunatic or just
another
hoax/rumor for wild publicity or even part of conspiracy made by
some nation(like stuxnet),
nobody knows for sure. It is not the first time such thing has
happened. There were previous episode involving controversial
cartoons, movie, documentary, writing, picture, songs, etc. But, long
before, the impact was less given lack of penetration of global
media. But, given global connection, this can have devastating
effects. Technology supports viral media. Its designed in every sense
to support sharing whether it be a song, video, blog, tweet, photo or
even meme. As a software engineer it gives me immense pleasure to see
new power it has given. But, being an ethical engineer its my duty to
realize its possible flip part. When I view comments on youtube on
one of those videos, I can clearly categorize commentators into
broadly two groups. One group supports the idea while other opposes
it. Each one group is based on what they have been taught to think
as. I call them local knowledge. For example, a person born in US may
have democratic and liberal thinking while one from North Korea may
have a rather communist thinking where socialism is basis for life.
Similarly, a person from country where free speech is practiced right
from schools like Scandinavian countries might love to experiment on
different ideas and philosophy and attack it trying to find possible
flaws in it. But for a person from a country where traditional moral
values are held foremost important and entire society is based on
conserving it, the behavior might be exactly different. If you
clearly study the different groups of commentators in social medias,
you can easily understand that everybody derives themselves from one
of those group of thought. Some may be corroboration of two or more
group of thoughts while rarely you see people who will be neutral to
these issues. The problem of global media is thus that it
interconnects them without properly educating them about it and
expects them to be ready for it and possible problems from it. Due to
this, instead of a taking a shape of global feast where everybody
learns and enjoys, it rather takes a nasty tug-of-war shape. It may
seem to start from comment but its not hard to reach a level of war
or atleast some kind of riot.
But, nobody is to take single blame
here. That would be again a wrong conclusion to make. Simply consider
episode of Mohammedan cartoons supported by danish media. If you
study danish media in isolation to danish environment, it seems
perfectly plausible. It is simply criticizing a view. If somebody
likes it they can support it. If it offends someone they can turn to
court for justice. Now, consider the Islamic world in isolation. The
conservative rule that governs not just thinking but also government,
strictly restricts any kind of criticism of any respects to religious
issues especially related to prophet. Here religion is held more than
just idea or view. It is a basis of life. It is something on the par
of freedom of speech to a Norwegian or socialism to a communist
person. Simply speaking, everybody has some kind of biasness for
something based on their background. So, when we move these group
from isolation and put them in global scenario things soon taste sour
with unexpected results, recent one being just a small one.
How can one have people with opposing
ideas in one place and at worst connected to each other without ever
affecting themselves? Seems like its not an easy solution. It is
something social scientists/psychologists have to figure out first
and then implemented by policy bureaucrats and educational
entrepreneurs into masses at global level. Should government allowing
free speech, revisit the domain of what freedom includes? Should
government trying to preserve a conservative thinking revisit rules
for possible reactions, should they be violated by a foreign person
in an alien country. This already seems quite infeasible to me given
bigger problems of world and a greed of nations for more wealth and
power. As a technologist, I will prefer limiting technology first
before we try to limit ourselves. Its far easy to do that kind of
thing than changing nations and at worst humans. Are every
technological entrepreneurs concerned about what can be possible
effects while they define the domain of their product? I am sure they
will look at rules of their nation. But, what about global norms and
local thinking of people in it. How will they react? How immune are
these global media against hoaxes especially those around sensitive
ideas like religion? Again it is dependent on these technological
entrepreneurs who develop newer tools for global media to decide and
act upon before its too late and we have a world full of hatred
rather than a truly humane world.
