ETHICS IN SOCIAL MEDIA

                                 Ethics in Social Media

Social media is a media involving interactive communication among participants. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp are a few examples of social media. Those media enable participants to post contents they favour. Recipes, job vacant, announcements, short writings on health, religion, and politics are a few examples of contents we frequently upload in our social media account. Readers of those contents freely comments on those contents. Some of them share positive comments with nice words, and sometimes with soothing and calming dictions. Such comments might lead to cheerfulness, happiness, and peacefulness. Others, however, use words having negative connotations, and they frequent use hate speech for expressing their ideas. Such comments might make the relation among social media users heated and unconducive, and it could break the social harmony.

                                    WA, one of the most popular social media

Relying on the implications of the way of commenting in social media, I propose 2 ethics we need to uphold.

• Be sure with the truthfulness of the content. As we receive a certain content, don’t directly pass it, rather read it comprehensively. Verifying it until we are sure that it is neither fake nor hoax is wise. It is worth noting that hoax and fake news are not necessarily bad news, but the news that sounds good could be hoax if it is not factual. I frequently read contents in WhatsApp informing the increase of the civil servant salary. It is good news, it is not a hate speech, but because it is not factual, so it lies. We do not need to pass it. Passing such news means we are passing fake. I am sure you can predict the implication of the circulation of fake news.
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•   Prior to upload a certain content, comment, or status, be sure with the dictions and pictures. Dictions, pictures, and other linguistic forms might influence readers’ mind. The world might look very bright and cheerful because of it is described through words and depicting via images having bright and cheerful connotations. At the same time, the world might seem scary, intimidating, and humiliating because of the word choices and images having the potential to fuel the hostility. Selecting dictions and images carefully prior to post messages in social media is the best policy.

S Social  media is part of our life nowadays. Totally keeping away from it is not impossible, but it might result in problems since communication in all communities is mostly through social media. Using it wisely is the best choice. Happy using your social media, Guys.

 

Tulungagung, September 30, 2022