Mindful Internet Use: A Call to Awareness -Masud Rana Kajol

For quite some time, social media has become a place to display images of influence, wealth, beauty, new clothes, and jewelry. As a child, I saw printouts of photos from photography studios, which were not given to anyone other than the subject or her father or brother at a certain time. Now, many people are posting pictures of their wives, daughters, and loved ones on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, without any particular reason.

Making friends on social media, regardless of time and place, has become a common trend among today’s youth. A huge number of young people exchange various pieces of information with these new friends, discussing many sensitive issues. Sometimes, they engage in voice calls at night, talking for hours. As a result, many personal and family issues are being exposed online through social media, leading to people becoming victims of various frauds and defamation. With the increase in the number of users on social media, confusion is also constantly increasing.

Despite the negative effects, current trends show that children, both in our country and abroad, are falling in love with each other. In fascination with this love, they are inviting their loved ones from European and American countries, getting married, and giving media interviews about their supposedly happy married life. This raises questions about the longevity of these relationships. However, the practice of promising to take the newlywed spouse to their country, dreaming of a home and family, and then leaving without any further inquiry is becoming increasingly common. Such incidents, which are not just one or two but many, are having various negative effects on individuals, families, and society.

People of different thoughts, consciousnesses, and relationships become friends with each other on Facebook. A 17- or 18-year-old youth makes friends with 70-year-old individuals. Many post different types of content and pictures without considering the differences in age, thoughts, behavior, or their actual relationship with their Facebook friends. As a result, respect, affection, and love for each other sometimes become distorted and wounded. What can be shared with a real-life friend cannot always be shared with a Facebook friend of a different generation. Everyone should have some privacy in their family and personal lives. Often, ‘friend requests’ are sent using the picture of a foreign actress or model as the profile picture, and many accept these requests without verification. Nowadays, boys create Facebook IDs with girls’ names and exploit them as needed.

If you examine some Facebook IDs, you can tell they are fake, created for a specific purpose. The images used as profile pictures and cover photos of such IDs often seem inappropriate. The content posted on these IDs is also objectionable. However, many people who are otherwise cautious accept the “friend request” from such IDs. Seeing the names of fake ID holders in the friend list of common people, others also accept those friend requests. In this case, even the cautious and aware are becoming senseless! And the fake ID holders are waiting for just this opportunity to exploit it for their own gain.

Men and women in our country often receive ‘friend requests’ from people in other countries. If you search the profiles of these foreigners, you won’t find anyone’s name from their country or society, except for one or two Bangladeshis, in their friend list. Why are there only a few Bangladeshis on the list of foreign friends? Do these individuals not have their own circle of friends? Why do they feel the need to send a friend request to someone thousands of miles away? Before accepting such a friend request, shouldn’t these questions arise in our minds? If you don’t consider them, you will be deceived step by step.

A few days ago, a young man befriended a young woman on Facebook. Their relationship turned into love, and they decided to get married. The girl took 80 lakhs from the boy, citing various reasons, then suddenly stopped communicating. The boy, upon finding her himself later, realized he had become a victim of fraud.

In another incident, a university student told a newspaper that he met a young woman on social media. They had a conversation and continued to meet at a restaurant in December last year. At one point, during a rickshaw ride, the young woman suggested visiting her empty house. When the boy agreed, they went to a house in Bashundhara, where the waiting miscreants tied him up and demanded a ransom from his father, threatening to kill him if the demand wasn’t met. This is a direct result of social media identity misuse.

There have also been cases of love on Facebook leading to marriage, followed by one partner being handed over to traffickers. A young woman from Pabna met a man from Habiganj district through a TikTok video. Their relationship developed into love, and at one point, the boy took the girl across the Satkhira border to India and forced her into prostitution in Kolkata.

Do we not have a responsibility to prevent such incidents? Of course, we do. Chatting, phone calls, and video calls should be moderate. Video recording of phone conversations and intimate moments is now being turned into a tool for blackmail. Pretending to be a boyfriend or girlfriend, some engage in sweet-talking and ask for candid photos and videos, which are later used for blackmail. Many young girls have committed suicide due to such threats.

Apart from threatening personal privacy and important information, widespread participation in social media also creates an environment conducive to cybercrime. Cybercrime includes misdemeanors, fraud, harassment, and the distribution of someone’s personal photos, audio, or videos with malicious intent, as well as creating fake e-commerce pages to sell low-quality products. Any dishonest activity on social media can be considered a cybercrime.

According to the Cybercrime Awareness Foundation, cybercrime in the country has increased by around 30 percent, up from around 15 percent in 2019. Most people accused of such crimes are between 18 and 30 years old. While most victims are young, even the elderly are not safe in the cyberworld.

Recently, artificial intelligence has made significant inroads online. Its harmful aspects have made the world a difficult place to live in. Researchers have found that some websites are using applications of artificial intelligence to create non-consensual, realistic-looking fake or slightly altered content, known as deepfake pornography. According to a survey by a social network analysis company called ‘Graphica’, in just the last month of September 2023, about two and a half million people visited such websites and committed this crime. These pictures are being spread on various social media and websites, contributing to non-consensual pornography.

The spread of truly objectionable pornography has become a bane of the Internet. A fake panic has spread in the Mumbai film industry. A deep-fake audio recording of an actress recently went viral. Ordinary people may not understand the extent of these manipulations. When people see or hear something, they often accept it as true. However, this is the inevitable result of the misuse of technology, lies, and fabrications.

We live in an interconnected world today, making communication between people around the globe fast and easy. As our dependence on the Internet increases, so does the potential for disasters and tragic events due to unruly behavior online. We must make a conscious decision and instill in ourselves the sense and conscience not to defraud anyone. Everyone’s careful steps can contribute to creating a supportive environment for comfortable browsing online.