Social Media: Time to sign off ?!
TRUE. Indeed, social media is changing the world. And it’s also undoubtedly creating massive discontent – worldwide – and intensely disrupting democracies, spreading discontent.
In the few recent months, and especially in this September, multiple Social Media platforms are believed to have been enormously instrumental destabilizing governments in several countries: Nepal, France, Malaysia, South Korea, Cambodia, Thailand, and more. The affected countries include not only highly developed, but many developing ones too.
Just a few days ago, sudden momentous occurrences in India’s neighbouring former Hindu Himalayan kingdom, Nepal’s capital Katmandu, fully and amply demonstrated what and how social media can destroy a chaotic albeit functioning government. The one single cause of all these unprecedented, catastrophic destructions is said to be Nepal’s 26 social media prolific platforms: Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc.
Nepal, the Himalayan nation of some thirty million people, had been experiencing wide protests led largely by Gen Z protestors demanding the dissolution of parliament and creating a non-partisan governmental administration. But government did not budge, leading to intensification of protests, actively aided and abetted by nearly 26 social media platforms. Banning social media platforms ended in severe violent protests; prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli was ousted. With parliament building, supreme complex, Singh Darbar, Nepal’s 173-year government office complex, all in flames, several deaths and extensive damage was done. The world saw ‘deeply fiendish, culpable’........
© Greater Kashmir
