Opinion: Prosecuted and sentenced by social media

opinionProsecuted and sentenced by social media. This isn’t some type of fantasy or fiction. This is real, and it’s very, very scary.

And unfortunately, as Frum people who have Halachos pertaining to every word we utter, this is one of the biggest issues and tragedies the Frum community faces today.

And no, I’m not a ‘Frummack’. In fact, I use social media for my business too.

Cars, guns and other deadly machines require licenses, but social media? Nothing.

Today, anyone can open an account, and suddenly everyone has a license – a license to kill, destroy and wipe a family off the map for generations. And all it took was that simple ‘I was just forwarding it – it was already on a different group’. And it’s over.

Some are reading this and saying, “C’mon man, it’s not that bad. Chill.” Really?

And then there are those who will saying to themselves. “Hello, there’s even a picture of it with a caption. It’s not like I’m making this stuff up.”

Let’s start the conversation over, this time placing you, your spouse, your parents or your child at the center of the social media or Whatsapp attack. Now go ahead and picture it – the slanderous, fictional, baseless story you forwarded from a chat you’re on – and all the dozens of comments that follow – are all about you or your family member. Go ahead, picture it, I’ll wait.

This isn’t some sort of joke. Lives are being destroyed. And you – believing everything you read without knowing or caring to know the truth, and then forwarding it – are a big part of this.

And I’ll just end with this great quote I recently heard.

“Every fool can count the seeds in one apple, but only Hashem, the highest power, can count the apples in one seed.”

You don’t know, nor will you ever know, how much anguish you caused, and will continue to cause the family at the center of your simple ‘forward, repost and copy/paste’.

E.B.,
Lakewood.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. As someone who was a victim of a social media attack begun by a popular blogger, I can attest to the damage that this can cause.

    It took my years to rebuild my reputation and I’m still fighting the battle.

    The good news is that the attacker confused my name with the name of someone else who was possibly guilty of what I was accused of. The bad news is that most people don’t know that this is what happened and assume that I’m some sort of monster.

    I will never forgive the person who spread the rumor, nor those who commented on it slandering me and my family, nor those who forwarded it.

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