DailyPost 1042
WHATSAPPED!
WhatsApp started as medium of continuous interaction which the world lapped in no time, graduated from a noun to a verb and now a way of life. It seems all mediums of human communication has finally converged into one. It could have subsumed Facebook, had it not been bought. What waves WannaCry and PetyaCry could not
ANcreate in the Cyber Security world even after being most pervasive ransomware known, WhatsApp it seems has accomplished holding the world at ransom. The ransom is your time, attention, focus, attraction / distraction, vitiated social life and what not? Is it out of our own violation or is it designed for overkill, the dopamine way.
The hotlines of yesteryears was meant for heads of state and later CEOs, armies and police, who needed instant communication, which was provided to them with best available technology, for a specific purposes. WhatsApp on a smartphone was thousand times more powerful, in a multimedia format pleasing to all our senses. The day to day activities of the lesser mortals were brought to the levels of top level execs and state heads as in the status of important information / emergencies and it was being followed in that manner. One was finally tied to the screen as the theatre of human existence, fun and frolic.
Notwithstanding, serving the need for instant commutation, WhatsApp conversely has emerged as a tool of propaganda, manipulation and influence in the most nefarious and surreptitious manner. Even the ISIS’s use of social media is put to shame. The WhatsApp content factory, wherever it exists or if its a consortium geographically distributed, is doing its job with elan, which will put best of ad / marketing agencies can just envy. The content is so magically done, is lapped by the ultra educated middle class and forwarded in manner, which they will not do even for the 100 marker answer sheet of their ward.
Anonymous is false is the dictum but for espionage, Intelligence and criminal intelligence, carefully validated. Authorship is a must for any writing and more so when you are bringing in a narrative in favour or criticising or moralising an act or a process. The end result is of selling that idea to make somebody the winner. A platform sans authorship is no platform. Will you ever allow a book or article of this nature to be published. Are we born to be manipulated? Is being digitally gullible our fate?
INSANITY SHOULD NOT BE THE FATE OF MOST USED COMMUNICATION MEDIUM.
Sanjay Sahay