I recently came across a tweet where someone posted a picture of a nanny; sitting inside a coach in metro, what was highlighted in the tweet was that while her mother and the child took seats, the nanny sat on the floor.
https://twitter.com/DhingraSanya/status/954723181553598465
The moment I read the tweet, I knew it is going to get viral. I tweeted nevertheless, “Some people like sitting on the floor. Unless you have proof that someone was actually sitting on the floor against her will, in a train where seats were empty, I think it makes no sense to tweet about it. Without proof, it is just speculation and I do not think it is right to post it.
I have urged people many times to verify the authenticity of things before posting them online. It takes seconds for something to go viral on the internet. We forget the fact that it can have real life repercussions, but in the excitement of posting something sensational, we completely ignore those repercussions.
As expected, the tweet about the nanny sitting on the floor went viral. There were articles written about caste/class discrimination and the woman who occupied the seat was maligned to the extent that her brother finally had to post a tweet clarifying what actually happened. He posted the other side of the story. He mentioned that the woman with the child and the nanny, all were sitting on the floor to begin with, as the train was crowded and all the seats were occupied, later, when some vacant seats became available, the nanny continued sitting on the floor as she felt comfortable there. This was the story — in fact, there was no story, there was nothing sensational that happened. Nothing wrong either. An innocuous part of someone’s metro ride was posted as caste/class discrimination online, inviting attention of thousands of people, maligning the image of someone not even active on social media, only realizing after the tweet went viral, that she has been maligned all over the internet.
This is not the first time that something like this has happened; there is a lot of unverified information that is circulated in social media, many edited and morphed videos and pictures, garnering hate and outrage on social media. Sadly, very seldom people try to verify their authenticity. We all have read, “don’t trust everything you read/see on social media” but how many of us actually remember that before sharing anything online?
Many things that happen in our society demand immediate action. There is a sense of urgency in reporting major crimes like rapes, murders, kidnapping and the like, because of the nature of those crimes, I still believe reporting such crimes with a caveat the person being alleged with the crimes is a “suspect” rather than a confirmed “perpetrator” is a better approach. However, when posting things that are relevant but not exactly urgent, it makes sense to verify the authenticity of the things before posting them online.
“RTs are not endorsements”, we have seen this disclaimer written on many profiles on Twitter. But before hitting that “Retweet” button or before hitting “Share” on any other social media platform, we need to understand that every time we share or retweet a post, we are contributing to the post getting viral, and if it is untruthful, we need to take responsibility, even if we did not write the post.
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