With 14 million followers, misclassified profiles, PR promotions, 1K alternate accounts, 3 million hate comments, fake trends and public management, is this the body we want to rely justice on? I strongly oppose the view that there should be social media trials before the actual judicial trials.
The blindfolded lady of justice in the court symbolises the philosophy that justice should be rendered “without passion or prejudice”. On the other hand, the opinions on social media are based on emotions, biases, detestation, resentment and religious hatred.
How are our opinions formed? Do we take the law into consideration? No, we don’t. Most of our opinions have an emotional concentration. But when it comes to justice, emotions and relationships are not to be taken into account. If something is against the law, it is wrong, whereas social media is more about human emotions.
Attached to it is the risk of cyberbullying. Do we really want to give the power of justice to an authority that uses it to promote cyber violence?
With freedom of speech and the power of social media, people have started taking the law into their hands. They decide without any facts, without any proof, who’s guilty and who’s not just on the illogical basis of their personal prejudices.
There have been numerous cases wherein the women of the house get rape threats. Why? Because one of their family members was wrongly judged guilty by the foolish herd mentality of social media.
On 16 April, 2020, a vigilante group lynched two Hindu sadhus and their driver in the Palghar district of Maharashtra. The incident was fueled by WhatsApp rumours and all of them were innocent people who died. Do we want to give the power of law in the hands of these kinds of people? I don’t believe so. Social media is a good tool for awareness, but that is not equal to correct decisions.
Instagram polls: are they an effective way to get the decision? The medium which promotes awareness, if used for justice, will only give dissatisfactory results. Furthermore, according to reports, most people don’t even have any social media accounts. Giving it the authority of justice doesn’t give the entire population the right to practice decision making.
Justice through social media will be twitter trends for a day that loses its charm if the news gets bland and boring. Justice isn’t about the news that gets sensationalised. It is not a social media battle about their supporters. It involves hearing the cases of opposite sides too. It’s different from the whims and fancies of trends and hashtags.
A carefully managed, governed and written judicial system that takes years of practice and learning to master cannot be defeated.