The Etiquette (Netiquette)
By JIMMY ODOKI ACELLAM (ODOKIJ),
FREELANCE WRITER.
The first social media site, in the format we know today was Six Degrees-a platform created in 1997; that enabled users to upload profiles and make friends with others. Since then, social media or social networking sites/platforms have become very popular and with more features including, content sharing.
The most used social media platforms in the world are Facebook; 2.41 billion users, Youtube-2 billion users, WhatsApp-1 billion. (World Economic Forum, 2019). Also, of the world’s 8 billion people, there are 4.80 billion social media users around the world as per April, 2023, equating to 59.9% of the global population. (DataReportal).
Indeed, the use of social media has been embraced well and there are many benefits to its use that the traditional mainstream media: print, radio and television struggle with, like aspects of content sharing, audience engagement, analytics etc. Despite its popularity, many negative aspects of social media use are being witnessed, including the abuse of rules of engagement on social media (netiquette).
Netiquette is respect for others online. For example,not sharing photos, videos or personal information that another person wouldn’t want published. Some of the most common negativities are; sharing gruesome images, nude photos, pornographic and inappropriate material on social media. It is disrespectful to other users, and yet incidents of this nature are happening.
On Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023, the State Minister for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relation and Member of Parliament for Oyam North, Hon. Col. (rtd) Charles Okello Engola Macodwogo was gunned down by his bodyguard from home. The images shared on most social media platforms shortly after that terrible incident without warnings to users were gruesome, gory. Certainly, most social media users who shared photos of the murdered minister did not care much or evaluate what the immediate family members would go through. There is so much irresponsibility on social media regarding content and information sharing. Yet it is difficult to hold users to account in case of negligence and abuse.
In the past, similar images have been shared of victims of assassinations, suicides, tragic and deadly accidents. Whereas social media users get gratification from instant or quick access to information, using social media sites, platforms, monitoring, regulation to ensure responsible use is proving to be an enormous challenge.
Social media users among other things also find gratification in high number of ‘likes’ of their shared content, the number of other social media users following them (Followers), how frequent their contents are shared, re-shared and whether they go viral. Many users of social
media platforms seem to be losing their humanity and empathy because they don’t give much attention in critical situations or circumstances where they could easily play the role of “The good Samaritan,” simply because of looking for ‘likes’ and trying to break the news first as opposed to helping. Four years ago, Henry Suubi Kiyimba reported to Makerere University as freshman (fresher) carrying a metallic suitcase, an old mattress and a bag commonly called Osofia. In a bid to embarrass and mock him, a social media user took his photo and shared it on various social media platforms.
Suubi who comes from a humble background wasn’t aware that his photo, which was taken as he reported to his hall of residence; University Hall was trending on social media.
Luckily for him, the attempt by this bad intentioned social media user to troll and humiliate him turned out a blessing as people of good will and sympathy rallied to support him financially and encouraged him in his studies. Suubi is now a final year student of Mechanical Engineering.
Sometimes, social media users with good intentions can overwhelm users with bad intentions when good strategies are applied to the different situations.
The DAILY NATION newspaper (April 26, 2023) published a story: Kitengela woman who killed, ate her child blames low self-esteem; “The 24-year old woman was rushed to hospital in a dazed stupor following the horrifying attack that was captured on video by neighbours.” This culture of taking photos, videos to share on social media instead of helping victims first is now widespread. From these kinds of behaviour, many social media users appear to have lost the traditional moral concept and way of life (Obuntu bulamu).
Excessive use of social media has emerged as one of its biggest problems, especially among the young people who are dominant users of Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Tik Tok, among other social media platforms. The result is behavioural addiction or Social media addiction. They are grappling with this new form of addiction that makes them devote too much time to using social media, hence affecting other important areas of their life. In many instances, rehab is the only form of treatment that is guaranteed to help but it costs a lot of money.
Despite the challenges and problems associated with social media use, society can still harness many benefits from it when used appropriately, responsibly, being respectable to other users and respectable users.