We live in strange times. My first tryst with the dark side of social media was a few years ago when I heard the story of a woman named Justine Sacco. Justine was traveling from New York to Cape Town back in December 2013. This woman had all but 170 followers. Like most of us who “Tweet before we Think” Justine Sacco in one of those moments tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just Kidding. I’m white!”
The internet did not like what Justine said and within minutes of her sending out this tweet, there was a proper hashtag dedicated to Justine Sacco’s tweet called #HasJustineLandedYet. The mob was relentless and Justine was sacked from her job the very next day. Just think about it, a woman lost her job for an innocuous tweet which as per her statement was intended to showcase how ignorant Americans are about the culture of South Africa. Justine seems to be doing fine now and has a stable job.
Now let us look at the story of Ravi Hooda. In the year 2020 Toronto mosques were allowed to broadcast their call to prayer during Ramadan citing COVID-19 restrictions. This decision did not go down very well with many people and one of them was Ravi Hooda who tweeted “What’s next? Separate lanes for camel & goat riders, Allowing slaughter of animals at homes in name of sacrifice, Bylaw requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents to appease the piece fools for votes.”
This led to a number of groups including the Canadian Anti-Hate Network targetting Hooda and demanded him being sacked. The net result was that Hooda’s contract was terminated with ReMax Canada which is one of Canada’s top real estate marketing websites. He was also removed from The Peel District School Board in Brampton, where Hooda was the School Council Chair. Hooda removed his tweets and issued an unconditional apology but in his case, the action did not seem to make much of a difference.
And now to the case that we have come across recently. GoAir has fired a senior pilot Captain Miki Malik, for criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter on Thursday. One of the many tweets of Miki Malik that have been circulating shows him saying “PM is an idiot. You can call me same in return. It’s ok. I don’t matter. Bcoz I am not PM. But PM is an idiot. Period.” Miki Malik issued an apology and has locked his account.
The common narrative amongst all the three cases is “Tweeting before Thinking” and then being hounded by a social media mob which led to them losing their livelihood. But the question we need to ask ourselves is are we doing the right thing? Actions have consequences, yes all of us know that. But is it fair to judge a human being for just one tweet or a few tweets? Is this the world we want for our children? A world without atonement and redemption. A world where we constantly walk on eggshells and stay silent and never state what is on our minds because we could lose our job.
Human beings will commit mistakes. This is just how we are at our core and the old religions/philosophies recognised that inherent nature. It is because of that they came up with concepts like atonement (प्रायश्चित) and redemption (मोचन). But the new religion of Wokeism has abandoned these concepts completely. The old witch hunts are back, albeit in a digital format. All we need to do is make one wrong post on social media and it could cost us our careers or in some cases even our life.
So if you are a young kid reading this my advise to you will be to follow certain steps:
- If you want to post about a socio-political subject read that post a minimum of 10 times before you share it. Do not post anything in a fit of rage.
- If you work for a corporate company avoid commenting on religion or politics as much as possible. If you want to, use an anonymous account.
- Avoid interacting with people on social media. Use the portals to make pronouncements. Avoid reading your mentions. Especially if you have a high follower count.
- Understand the value of money, build your bank balance before you start airing your views. This makes you what I like to call UnFuckable. So that when the digital mob comes after you they cannot harm you financially.
To the ones who disagree with me and believe in canceling each other out, I want to make one last plea. Next time you go after someone’s job just picture this scenario. When we harm someone financially we don’t hurt them alone. We harm their children, spouse, and many other family members along with them. These people have EMI’s to pay, hospital bills to clear, and emergencies to deal with. Do we really want to be part of a culture that not just destroys one person’s life, but it ends up destroying the lives of many others associated with them? Is this the world we want to build for our future generations? A world where there is no compassion, a world where we commit one mistake and we are doomed for life. Remember the value of atonement and redemption. Without them, the world will be full of chaos. So the next time you are about to tag the employer of an individual to get them fired picture the scenario that I have painted above.