Experts Stresses For Gate-keeping Social Media Across Borders

Media experts on Thursday stressed the need for gate-keeping social media by enacting International as well as national laws to ensure filtering of fake information, and discouraging propaganda against any particular group or society

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th May, 2018 ) :Media experts on Thursday stressed the need for gate-keeping social media by enacting International as well as national laws to ensure filtering of fake information, and discouraging propaganda against any particular group or society.

They said that "In contemporary modern world times, the state's responsibilities have increased manifold and it has to protect its citizens from the bad use and misuse of the kinds of Propaganda over these social platforms, so that our attitudes do not become negative which can have social impact." Chairman Department of Media and Communication Studies, International Islamic University, Dr Zafar Iqbal while talking to APP on Thursday proposed that state should be responsible for protecting the minds of people to avoid extremist and radicalized approaches in the society.

"We need to establish analysis centre to monitor what is coming through social media," he added. "People have liking or disliking what is coming on social media; we need to use different techniques of sentiment analysis to gauge negativity, associated with social media posts," he added.

Dr Zafar said social media had flooded every society and there were around 50 million social media users in Pakistan. "Some of the fake and spicy news are there, hate Mongers are also there, which are affecting our attitude and behavior.

We need to Understand that seemingly operating," he added. He also stressed the need to train and educate the children by imparting them critical thinking that the information they were receiving over social media, was either fake or real.

He said social media and the digital sphere offered a great new opportunity for Journalism, enabling reporters to tell stories in different ways, while working with data to create depth and context for their audience.

However, those who indulge in propaganda are also making use of data with considerable success, spreading misinformation with the purpose of promoting their own agendas, leading to a loss of trust in the media in the process, he added.

He said, the media was being manipulated these days, makes it very difficult for even the highly professionals among the journalists to escape becoming willing promoters of this propaganda without realizing what they were doing.

Although most of the countries around the globe including Pakistan had laws regarding access to information but these laws could not be implemented fully, he added. Head of Department Mass Communication, National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Mufti Jamiluddin told APP that although social media had made it easy for the people to receive information rapidly, but there was a question about the authenticity of information.

He said the responsibility of print and electronic media had also increased in this regard as they had to sort out the genuine and fake news item, flooding the social media. Media could play role in shaping behavior of society, government and particularly mindset of the society, he concluded.