DailyPost 1698
THE DIGITAL DELUSION
If you have not watched The Social Dilemma, it is advisable that you don’t use the social media. Whatever perception and utility Social Media has created is out of mercenary design to make monetary windfall, which no one could have even imagined. You fall prey to it out of your ignorance. That is one social design element which as been created by the social media companies. The other design element has been created by users, organizations, cheap digital armies to silence you, to make your life miserable; for fun or cheap thrills or for crushing dissent. These are the lurking elements of the social media and are popularly known as trollers and the weapon they specialize in is called a troll.
This has taken a professional turn quite sometime back. Suffice to say, there are professionals in the negative, criminal and anti-social professions and this is one of the them. It is the heady mix all ugly elements of the physical, digital, base political, sexist and the digital world. It is played out in the virtual world but every single keystroke deployed on the trolls does immense damage with multifarious impact all throughout the system. If we really have to save the freedom of speech and expression, this is the digital battlefield, venom is the name of the game. Euphemistically, they are troll armies, with their task neatly defined, and their patrons extremely proud of them.
Sometimes, they camouflage into digital marketing and at times also into political garb of campaigning and depending on their ingenuity, it can transform into social and awareness campaigns too. Don’t get deceived, their only task to mow down dissent. They want to become the Digital Variants of the Jihadi John of the ISIS fame. They are stricken by the digital delusion, of greatness, of being mighty and are of the firm belief that they can achieve anything through this mode. The best practitioners of this skill, expertise and trade both at the individual or at the community level have come down crashing, the last US President being a perfect example.
The language used can reach to the level of being filthiest you can imagine of. How governments after governments have allowed it to thrive is beyond the pale of anybody’s imagination. Can there be so much of a difference in the application of law and legal action for the virtual world? The nature of threats of even bodily harm of every type can send chills down the spine of the victims but who is bothered. Digital mafia is the only term which can be used to describe them. Large number of them are under the protective wings of organisations who believe that hitting at the soft underbelly is the best way to score success. Trolling is a crime against civilized society. This trend needs to be legally arrested.
TROLLING IS THE ULITMATE MANIFESTATION OF THE DIGITAL DELUSION.
Sanjay Sahay