Rumour Mongering via Social Media
The rumors all over social media, my friends…🤔😎. Yeah, we are friends because I share my thoughts with you and you listen. Feels good. Many thanks. 🙏🏾
Have you noticed the way rumours are spread so fast these days? Many thanks to technology and social media platform and that we have access to them all. Should I also say many thanks to our gullibility and willingness to allow distractions stop us from asking some pertinent questions and shunning some of these when it’s clearly in bad taste or do we say the taste resides with the taster? 🤔🤔
Rumour could be defined as “a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth.” Dictionary.com. We have so much of it with some carrying gory photos & you stop to ask…how and when did this happen and who exactly recorded the scenes in circulation as we are meant to believe that these incidences were not prearranged. How did the originators get so much detailed information? Who are these originators sef?
These rumours range from how not to shake a gas cylinder as if you do, it would explode and you see the shaking and the explosion and it’s tough to piece the sequence together. Or that you have a snake stuck under your gas cylinder…then the snake 🐍 is there and you get a camera to record and broadcast…how did we get those details? Or the case of a deceased person in a developed country…we have the person’s photo being circulated as the authorities are unable to trace his or her relatives or the politically motivated rumours! They are just unending.
Now I’m 💭 is their a market for rumours and rumour mongering? Who stands to gain and who are the losers. Ofcourse the platform on which these rumours get around and the internet service providers are “gainers” in terms of traffic…but what about the originator of these lies and half truths? What does s/he gain? Surely the peddlers to my mind are big time losers because they spend their time and energy as well as resources (purchasing data plans) and possibly relationships to spread and argue over something they don’t know the genesis or revelation of!
Shouldn’t we deliberately stop patronizing these acts that often seek to misinform and create disaffection amongst us. Shouldn’t we heed Philippians 4:8?
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Philippians 4:8 NIV
Much respect ✊
I think the losers are those who waste their data in spreading such rumors without verifying or thinking it through, because the peddlers put it up to misinform the gullible that spread these stories . When the rumors are spread it is assumed to be true by most people
My dear, it’s crazy. And it is sad that those of us who have been blessed to be ex-these and ex-that, supposed thorough-bred professionals of the old order have become part of the problem. We hurry to spread rumours and gossips that are unfounded and such have all the physical rough edges of an open lie and yet we have been blessed by God with the wherewithal to know or confirm that this story is a blatant lie. We have become a part of the problem of society…. not a solution as we should be. Must we spread a gossip or a rumour? If the story is doubtful, why don’t we just forget it. Why are we so attracted to gossips or rumours and why do we have that strong desire to always click-send it? Are we reflex rumour mongers or gossips? Every time you help spread a rumour or gossip, you erode from your integrity in a manner that diminishes your character most irreparably. We’ve gotten to the point that on this platform, once I see a story from certain persons, I could swear, without cross-checking at all, that this is a rumour. Why? Because the person has become notorious with posting fantastic rumours (what Yoruba call “Odu”) wittingly or unwittingly!!! Even when the person posts a truth, my first gut feeling is that, coming from this person, it’s most certainly an untruth so I need to cross-check if again!! That is what helping to spread rumours does to you. It turns you to the boy who cried wolf where there was none!!!🤔🤔🤔 – Abiye Amakiri
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