Watch what you say next time

I’ve heard many times before about the dangers of saying the wrong thing and it comes back to you in a form of sticky situation. Things that you say on the Internet will eventually, come back to bite you in the ass. A sad trend I’ve seen lately is the number of people who tweet or facebook while they are not in the right mind. Of course, they may realize it’s a mistake the next day (when they are in sound mind) and hastily seek to delete the post. But, unfortunately, it is too late for the damage has been done. We should forever remind ourselves and those around us of what we say. Others will re-post to you or somehow print screen what you’ve said. Worse still, it haunts us back one some point in time.
 
A couple of months ago, a USM student who posted a bomb threat on his Facebook account would have regretted for the consequent mess he faced. He allegedly threatened to bomb PM's helicopter that would fly the prime minister for a visit to the campus on his Facebook posting. Apparently, he made a grave mistake which cost him his fate to be in despair. Had he been a sensible boy, he would have thought twice to post something stupid like that (as if he has guts to do so). This is the downside of social network and people’s rash decision to publish things on the net. 

 
Whoa whoa… I won’t begin to speculate as to what prompted him to post something like this over Facebook for his friends and the other netizen to see. I will, however, repeat myself once again… Watch. What you say. It’s not that difficult, people. Do not sign into your social network when you are drunk, infuriated, miserable or whatever other emotional state you are in. It’s fine to share things with your network. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But if you cannot be coherent and sensible with what you’re about to say, do you dare to spell it out loud?

Social network like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter is for networking, not for you to invite more trouble for yourself. People should always be careful about what they say online. Watch out. Think about what the hell you are madly typing. It can be a message, a comment or even the shout out that you put up. Look out what have you written and try to make sense what you’re saying before you hit that post button. After that one click of the button, you are accountable for what you say and it will haunt you for the rest of your life. So the rule of the thumb is avoid from posting things on social network that you will regret sooner or later. Simply because one day, odds are good that someone stumble across whatever you say, and it will come back to haunt you. 

How many of us are conscious that social sites these days are paradise for ample personal information about oneself. And thus, most of the netizen are vulnerable since they are easy prey for criminals and who not. One would realize that there are so much of personal details can be found from someone’s social profile page. Usually, the photos and wall posts can give people a pretty good idea of who you are, where you are, and what you’re doing. Social sites have become a fad for younger generations and even more worrying is, it has influenced even the elderly generation. Funny right? More and more users are turning to Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to chronicle their lives and socialize with friends. However of lately, I’ve been learning from the words passing around that the actual intention of these networking sites is reaching way beyond. Photos and personal details shared have gone beyond the friend’s circle which is a grave concern today.


Another very controversial issue popped up recently when one insensible young lady posted racial slur remarks in FB creating a colossal uproar across various social echelons. I must say it infuriated all the Tamilians in Malaysia by the unjustifiably and tactless statement that she made. The provocation statement has taken the cyber world by storm. Now the bigoted lady is facing the music much to her horror. Police reports have been made against her for inciting hate amongst various ethnicity echelons. Worse still, her modeling career has been in turmoil as well. Anyway, we wouldn’t want such a person to represent the Indian women of Malaysia to global arena (only if she does). It would be an utter disgrace. 

The infamous lady is not someone that we all should emulate. Take this as a lesson to be learned on how to watch what you say and coordinate your thoughts or opinions in a more respectable way. Perhaps she was just too depressed with bad experiences with guys (of the ethnicity that she criticized) that led her to be over dramatic in her emotions that ignited her to post such remarks on her social site. Poor girl if only she was cautious of what she has written on her site, and aware the rights of being a victim of circumstances, she would have not been sucked into this turmoil. Instead if she was a smart women and knows her rights to practice, she would have lodged a report against whomever harassing her in her neighborhood. I am not going to probe into her character nor justify what she did was right or wrong as it is none of my interest. But all I can say this incident is good eye-opener for the rest of us.
 

I am an avid netizen myself. I have my fair share of saying ‘insightful’ things in my life in written form; blog, word press and FB note to some extent. But I am witty enough to say what I am suppose to say and not simply raise innuendo to incite hurt in others. I am sure some of my posts have infuriated people that took it personal when I didn’t even need to mention the name. Their conscience was pinched and guilt engulfed them so much so that they even made copies of it to disseminate it making me a sensationalized writer (Ironically). Ha-ha-ha. It was unpremeditated endorsement for my write-ups and eventually earning me the name of provocative writer. This didn’t hamper my passion of writing. I was provoked to further write more of challenging topics as I always do. It gives me something to write about and it gets down really dirty. After all I would call it as serendipity if it offends anyone undeliberately (I don’t mention names here or point out explicitly).

As a matter of fact, I love to ignite the substance of broad-spectrum of social dilemmas which mostly is confrontational. It interests me to go in depth about it. It annoys many people out there whom are disturbed by it due to the resemblance to their personality (some even feel that I am writing about them). If that’s what they feel, I feel sorry for them that I had to let the whole world see through my writing what is happening around the globe. And they just happen to be exactly like how I pen down my thoughts. Too bad they had to gulp down their guilt.