How to use social media?

 How to use social media?

Former Union Minister of India and BJP's Smriti Irani is being trolled for writing extremely offensive things. Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Indian Lok Sabha and a member of the Indian National Congress, wrote on the social media 'X' on July 12, 2024 - 'Victory and defeat are things that happen in life. With this, let's stop writing abusive words to Mrs. Smriti Irani or other leaders.' The meaning of the post written by Rahul in English was like this.

Smriti Irani contested the election from Amethi in the last election. She defeated Rahul Gandhi in the 2019 election by a margin of 55 thousand votes. Perhaps, it was because of that arrogance that she said during the election campaign - 'Even an ordinary BJP worker can easily defeat the Gandhi family in the election.'

However, in this election, Kishorilal Sharma, who contested for the first time on behalf of the Congress, defeated her by a margin of 1 lakh 60 thousand votes. For this reason, there is a flood of trolls writing insulting things targeting Smriti. Here, the intention is not to talk about the elections. The context is how people who use social media are taking social media in a bad direction.

Of course, if we mention the negative actions or effects of social media, the government sees only one solution, and that is to ‘shut it down.’ Here, TikTok has already suffered that fate. In the context of Nepal, some social media users take the respect of leading men, women, and social activists and leave them. Instead of promoting or sidelining an issue by debating a logical issue, such users create a situation where they are depressed by using obscene abuse.

Most of the people who write such comments are pseudonymous. Even the state, if the existing law is not enough to suppress such people, chooses to shut down social media itself instead of formulating laws. Proof of this can be seen in the decision of the Council of Ministers to ban TikTok on 26 Kartik 2080. There was widespread opposition after the government banned TikTok; but the government did not listen. According to those who opposed it, the media reported that there was no law to ban social media in Nepal.

In this context, the news titled ‘Which law did the government show to ban TikTok’ published on 29 Kartik 2080 on the BBC Nepali website states – “Former Minister Madhav Poudel, who is also the chairman of the Law Commission, says that the government should pass a law through Parliament to regulate social media service providers.”

“We only have laws that regulate traditional media. They cannot regulate social media or online media. A special law is needed for that,” he expressed his opinion. No matter what anyone says, the government has to ban TikTok. What is even more interesting is that most people are using TikTok by setting up a VPN, and TikTok videos are being posted in front of everyone, including government representatives or the Cyber ​​Bureau or the police. But no one sees or wants to see them.

Not only that, when I went to the Cyber ​​Bureau on February 21 to register a complaint after being subjected to extreme abuse on social media, the spokesperson there said that the Cyber ​​Bureau cannot take complaints about abuse on TikTok. Because TikTok has been officially banned in Nepal. Even on Twitter, complaints are not taken against people who do not have a blue tick, and that is also not official. Those who do not take complaints, even if they tell the general public to do so, are immediately arrested if they write something about a leader or a powerful person on social media.

The Electronic Transactions Act 2063 was brought for the purpose of regulating and organizing transactions through electronic media. However, it does not cover cybercrime.

Furthermore, legal experts say that Section 307 of Part Three of the Criminal Code also does not cover crimes committed through social media. According to experts in the relevant field, this section also does not cover cybercrime.

This has not benefited government agencies at all. The reason is, those who enjoy TikTok have taken it, and when someone went to file a complaint that they were insulted or defamed by TikTok, the Cyber ​​Bureau under the Nepal Police turned the complainant away saying, ‘Since TikTok has been banned here, we cannot do anything about it.’ An example of this is this columnist himself.

When writing in ‘X’ about the inhuman treatment of street vendors by the Kathmandu Metropolitan City police, such obscene and insulting things were written that the person who had ignored any comments until then went so far as to file a complaint with the Cyber ​​Bureau, Nepal Police Headquarters, Bhotahiti.

On 2080, on Falgun 8, the complaint filed asking for ‘necessary action’ stated, ‘In the present matter, the social media Twitter (not ‘X’ in the complaint written by the office employee, Twitter itself has written) has posted various things about me that are inciting social harmony and have destroyed my social character, so please find the person with the mentioned link and take necessary action.’ Till date, no news has been received about the complaint.

But, ironically! The female inspector working in the same office was discouraging her by saying, ‘Can’t you write less? You are also sick, why are you working under stress?’

According to the officer above her, the Cyber ​​Bureau did not give a ‘blue tick’ Since the social media accounts that are taken are not considered official, action cannot be taken against what they write! The reason why I cannot write the names of those government employees here is because I did not take permission from them.

Although, the high-ranking person had also advised filing a case for ‘insult and defamation’; but, where does everyone have the means and energy to go to court every time and pay huge amounts of money to lawyers?

Social media does not have all the good sides. It has increased the number of acts ranging from vandalizing many homes to spreading fake news, publishing personal information without permission, bullying and mistreatment, exaggerating incidents that did not happen, and causing depression.

Some people have even shown unthinkable behavior such as committing suicide by showing it live on Facebook, or committing suicide by writing a status saying that I am committing suicide.

In the absence of appropriate laws, some people, especially women, have had to endure extreme humiliation on social media. Of course, men are not immune to bullying; however, women are directly subjected to character insults. Who would do that when there is no law to account for the mental stress it causes?

Despite all the above, social media can be of great benefit. Some examples of this are related to myself.

This columnist, for the first time, read a post on social media and helped raise funds and voice for help for someone on 8th Shrawan 2068 Bikram Sambat—after seeing a photo of Jamuna Budha Magar, who weighed only eight kilos at the age of twelve, posted by Laxmi Tamang, who was then doing her PhD in Australia.

These eyes, which had not yet thought of seeing the skeleton-like bodies of famine that are mostly seen in Somalia and Rwanda, at least in Nepal, did not dare to click on the photo and enlarge it. But running away from reality without clicking a photo would not have been possible.

On Sunday evening, August 8, another activist, Sushil Chandra Lekhak, had posted a photo on Facebook of Nepal Medical Association computer professional Arun Khanal, who was working at Bheri Zonal Hospital, Banke, where he was staying, on Monday morning. After seeing it, another activist, Sushil Chandra Lekhak, had written, “I could not believe that a patient in such a condition could be found in Nepal. Arunji said that I had taken the photo myself, but later I believed him and put it on the Nepal Public Health Professional Group site, which Laxmi Tamang is looking at.”

After that, I lost sleep at night and the peace of day. I tried to move forward by appealing to all my friends for help. The state of mind shaken by Jamuna’s condition reminded me of the news that just two days earlier, about 82 million rupees had been distributed from the government treasury in a year in the name of financial assistance. Among those who received the money by distributing it in this way were former Prime Ministers of the Nepali Congress, the Nepali Congress President, the Maoist Vice Presidents, members of the Legislative Assembly, sons of members of the Legislative Assembly, religious conferences, etc.

After reading the news about Jamuna, 314,254 rupees were raised by her friends and herself by 24th Shrawan 2068 BS, but Jamuna Budha Magar died without using that money. In the days that followed, many works have been done through social media.

Many works have been done such as providing accommodation to some women, helping others with employment, providing disability allowance to physically disabled women who were left to die somewhere, providing medical expenses to some needy people, and providing wheelchairs to some; the things mentioned here are only my own activism and experience. Many such works are being done by other friends and groups. That is why I feel like being a supporter of social media.

In this era of globalization, social media has made it easy and free for people living in any corner of the world to connect with each other, send messages to each other, and send photos, videos, etc. to each other through multimedia. It has also made it easy to talk about any social problem in a group, and to be informed about your business, thoughts, and interests, saving time. If we are to study world events, Facebook is the one who initiated political movements like the ‘Arab Uprising’.

Nowadays, we do not have to wait for any news media to deliver news or ideas suitable for the country and society to the public. The former ‘Twitter’ and the current ‘X’ 280-character post (you can write longer ones after paying), long or short statuses on Facebook, captions on Instagram, statements (status or features) on LinkedIn, live or recordings on YouTube, messages on WhatsApp, a few seconds or minutes of TikTok videos, Snapchat conversations, etc., can also help us convey our desired topics or issues to the world at a faster pace. There was a time when if something had to be made news, we had to go to the media with folded hands. Today’s situation is no longer like that.

The great support that has been provided by social media so far can also be considered in the work of arranging drinking water in a settlement in Dhading.

The devastating earthquakes of Vikram Sambat 2072, on 12 and 29 Baisakh, not only killed people and made them homeless; its impact also created a situation where some settlements could be displaced. One such settlement in Dhading district Benighat VDC, Ward No. 7, Gyaja Charaundi was also there.

I had reached that place without any purpose, on Magh 1, 2073 BS, with the family of Yashoda Timsina, the then member of the National Information Commission. It was already night when we reached there. After eating, we went to bed at around 1 am. The housewife was cleaning the stove.

When we woke up the next morning, she was not at home. When we asked other members of the house, we got the answer that she had gone to get water.

There was a tap in the courtyard. However, water did not come from that tap. Therefore, the women of that settlement used to go to the only water source in the village, a small well, to get water. All other water sources had been dried up by the landslide. There were 24/25 households in that village, including Dalits, Brahmins, Kshetris and Chepangs.

Vegetable farming was also good in this beautiful village. Currently, organic farming was being promoted here. But in this village, the devastating earthquake has created a water shortage.

The streams of this village, which were 'water-happy' before the earthquake on April 12, have received even more water after the earthquake on April 12. The water sources have become even more abundant. But the earthquake on April 29 has dried up all those sources.

There is only one small spring left in the village. Not only do housewives spend a lot of time carrying 2/3 of their daily loads of water, but they also have to carry heavy pots and other water containers on their backs for about half an hour to 15 minutes from a distant house to a nearby house, which has created a situation that can have a major negative impact on the health of women.

They would wake up at 4 in the morning and go to the water source to wait in line, and sometimes, instead of carrying water themselves, they would have to carry water for wages. The water brought in that way had to be used for everything from the bathroom to household activities. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that ‘water was as expensive as gold’.

Apart from that, if even the small water source at that time dried up (according to the locals, it was drying up!), there was a fear that the beautiful settlement would be destroyed. If that had happened, how many people would have become homeless and could have fallen into poverty, a separate story would have been told.

According to the locals, if the government wanted, it could have distributed water by drawing it from the Charaundi River flowing below the village with a machine and placing a tank at the highest point of the village. Until then, the VDC had not shown much interest in that. The VDC had a budget of 7.7/7.8 million! If a little more was added to that, the water problem would have been solved. But the locals complained that the people's representatives there, including the then MP Rajendra Pandey, had not looked into this problem.

We, a group of 9 people, had arrived for 2 nights including children. But due to the hardships faced by the children in the winter and the lack of water, we returned within one night. After coming to Kathmandu, I wrote about the water woes in that slum; I also tweeted Hello Government. However, the concerned agency gave me the invoice number ‘like tying up a cat and performing Shraddha’.

But… my friend Narvada Chhetri, a resident of New York, read my status and called me on Messenger. He asked me to find out how much it would cost to provide water to that slum.

Narvada Chhetri and I first met in 2052 BS when I was taking the ‘Beyond the Beijing’ program to Hetauda. After that, the next time we met was in 2068 BS at a program in New York. He was actively working in the local organization ‘Adhikar’ there.

Narvada Chhetri said that ‘Adhikar’ had some money left over from the earthquake relief fund, let’s try to provide water to that slum from there. And we continued. But during that period, the board of ‘Adhikar’ changed; and that matter was also stopped. But neither of us gave up; the initiative was taken again. I give 90 percent of the credit for this to Narvada Chhetri and the ‘Adhikar’ team. After 17 months of efforts since we started the matter of bringing water, we reached a point where we could start working.

For a settlement that seemed to be rising due to water, it was no small matter to provide such a huge help. There was neither support from any political party, nor any government support. There was only social media. I kept on struggling alone for 17 months.

In the meantime, I had also informed ‘Hello Sarkar’ about the problem through Twitter. In response, Hello Sarkar replied, “It has been written to the Ministry of Drinking Water to take necessary action and pay attention to the policy and program or the upcoming budget”; whose invoice number was ‘46824.

I had also written an article about that problem in the Sanghu Weekly on Monday, 28th Jestha 2075 titled ‘The Pain of a Beautiful Settlement in Crisis!’.

Finally, the ‘Adhikar’ organization gave 40 thousand dollars. It was about 4.5 million Nepali rupees; the rest of the support was provided by the rural municipality, the local people’s labor, etc., to arrange drinking water there. I don’t know what it is like there now. The inauguration of the house by turning on the water tap was done by the then chairman of that rural municipality, Pitta Bahadur Dallakoti, elected from the Maoist Center, and the then member of the National Information Commission, Yashoda Timsina. I sat in the corner and watched. There was no discussion about how much effort I had put in to bring that much money.

Therefore, should social media be used only as a means/medium to assassinate someone’s character or as a useful tool! It is too late to draw attention. At least, someone as sensible as Rahul Gandhi should come out!