“Social media helps mobilize the community and express concerns”

On Wednesday, broadcast reporter Najia Ashar said in a conversation entitled “The Power of #Hashtags: Navigating the Social Media Landscape” that social media can help mobilize communities, organize protests, and collectively express concerns.

The purpose of the fifth issue of Ziauddin University’s interactive “ZU Dialogues” is to discuss the strength of hashtags, the impact of social media on its users, the correct and active use of social media, and to obtain expert opinions and analysis. How we use social media to bring positive changes to our society.

When answering questions about social media trends, Nagar, who is also the chairman of the Global Media Innovation Community, said: “They created a voice community to talk about specific topics. The great thing about hashtags is that they will be used in natural disasters, tragedies, and suffering. The community gathers together.

“The biggest hashtag in 2015 was #BlackLivesMatter. It was used by social media users more than 9 million times. The madrasa rape, the MeToo movement, the Shahzaib murder, Aurat March, the highway rape — without social media, they wouldn’t Will receive so much attention.

“There is no doubt that social media can help mobilize communities, organize protests and raise their collective voice against the indisputable authorities, because large media organizations are affected by the corridors of power and they cannot go against their economic interests.

She revealed that the revised social media usage rules are still at a deadlock. Earlier this month, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications released the third version, but the most problematic clause on the removal of illegal online content has not changed. Digital rights activists and social media companies oppose it.

She advises social media users to pay attention to the General Data Protection Regulation, because many social media applications require people to allow data tracking, so whenever you download an application, you can turn it off from the settings to avoid being tracked. “Let yourself know about cookies, location; read terms and conditions; don’t give companies the right to decide what they can do with our data.”

Cyberbullying

Tehmina Lodhi, Associate Professor and President of Ziauddin School of Media Science, said: “Cyber ​​bullying is very devastating to a person’s mind and body. According to a study, about 13% of teenagers report that they have suffered online at least once in their lives Bullying, this ratio is quite high.

“There are too many opportunities to access viral content, pornographic content; so many racist content, homophobia, religious content; so we should let people understand their rights and how they handle these rights, because it is difficult for a person to be alone deal with.”

Regarding the impact of social media on a person’s mental health, she said that multiple studies have found that depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm and even suicidal thoughts are closely related to social media. It also promotes negative experiences.

“When someone clicks on the “like” button on your photo on social media, your physiological reaction will go up and people are very fascinated by it. It’s like playing with your thoughts, you don’t know how much it has done to us. Long-term damage.

“People are being affected by what’s happening on social media. It is replacing our family time. We really need to control it because this will be the biggest epidemic we have to experience in the next few years.”

Independent media

Kamal Siddiqi, Director of the IBA Center of Excellence for Journalism, said: “Compared with mainstream media, social media is more independent. We can observe that mainstream media is subject to strict censorship over the past few years.

“If one wants to find some news or what is happening, people will go to Twitter instead of some major news publications; this shows the importance and power of social media.

“In our country, people are using social media to highlight their problems, dissatisfaction and share their stories; the government is also using social media to issue announcements about different issues. Therefore, it has become a major source of information and we have noticed that the government is Quick action was taken on issues spread through social media.

“Through social media, we have had unprecedented discussions. There was a time when the official media controlled everything; newspapers were censored. There was no way to communicate with each other.

“People are talking about issues that we have never talked about. They are considered taboo topics; now young people are talking about sex, drugs, alcohol, child abuse, violence against women-all these issues are under debate, and because of social In the media, we understand all aspects of the story.”

Speaking of the government’s use of social media, he said: “Compared with previous governments, today’s government attaches great importance to social media. This government is very sensitive to its image on social media; maybe this is their social media The reason for investing so much.

“If you look at the military, ISPR, they also attach great importance to social media. Most importantly, what we have seen is that most of our ministers, politicians, stakeholders, opinion leaders are now using social media, Especially Twitter issued a statement. The government not only uses social media, but also takes action against prominent wrongdoing in the country.”

Billion users

Speaker and spokesperson for the US Consulate General in Karachi, Brittney Stewart, said that according to data, the number of social media users has doubled since January 2016, which means that the total number of global social media users has increased by 1 billion. The past three years.

“The growth of social media penetration is increasing year by year. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, and during the Covid-19 outbreak, we have seen this growth. During this pandemic, the United Nations has been concerned about the coming fear of social media, Uncertainty and negative effects on people’s mental health warn the world.

“When we see the growth and rise of social media in 2020, this level of social media activism has been raised to a whole new level. Activists use social media and create hashtags and Facebook events to better organize them Protests; all of the global protests we are observing are due to social media.

“From a marketing perspective, companies and brands are adopting e-commerce strategies. In addition, we have observed customer data privacy leaks in the past. Negative effects of social media, such as data privacy, security, ethics, cyberbullying, fake news, and errors Information and false information are topics of discussion all over the world.

“As individuals, influencers, change makers, communities, companies, and civil society, it is entirely up to us to determine what we want to change and how to change everything, and finally propose solutions to make social media beneficial to everyone Tools. Users all over the world.”