Social Media Platforms

[Abu Nur]

Salaam Aleikum,

Most of these Social Media platforms, like Twitter or Facebook, their nature mostly encourage and favor to evil content and behaviour. Most of their content is based on snap judgements of people that procude conjecture that is mostly wrong and defective. It leads to information that is exatly in nature opposite of what Islam encourage.

The questions is this, why some Scholars (and some themselves have an account there) still allow to make account and posts in these platforms in the positive way (spreading Islam etc), when the platform itself naturally and purposly tend to be an malign?

Edited January 16, 2022 by Abu Nur

[Ashvazdanghe]

Salam all types of social media likewise Twitter or Facebook are likewise double  edge sword which their nature is neutral as any tool nevertheless  main owners of these platform have evil nature but these tools can be used for good deeds liewise spreading true message of Islam anyway I think we need a new social media platform which must runs by muslims .

 

 

[Haji 2003]

On 1/16/2022 at 11:41 AM, Abu Nur said:

The questions is this, why some Scholars (and some themselves have an account there) still allow to make account and posts in these platforms in the positive way (spreading Islam etc), when the platform itself naturally and purposly tend to be an malign?

I disagree that these platforms are naturally and purposely malign.

It's like books. The vast majority have dubious content, that does not mean that there is something inherently wrong with the printed word! Your experience of Twitter depends on who you follow, what you choose to read and how you respond. 

For the sake of their own business model Twitter will not start sending you material that you have not shown any interest in and you can use the preferences function to suit your needs.

Twitter has allowed me to get regular updates from health professionals about covid (some of which I have reposted here), in the traditional media such professionals voices have been drowned out by idiots.

[Hameedeh]

My Twitter account is so inactive that I have forgotten my twitter handle; it's somewhere on my About Me page. 

On 1/17/2022 at 6:56 AM, Haji 2003 said:

For the sake of their own business model Twitter will not start sending you material that you have not shown any interest in 

I get 3 emails every day from Twitter asking me to come back. They know I am not using their site. They send me new tweets from people that I clicked on when I first joined. 

On 1/17/2022 at 6:56 AM, Haji 2003 said:

Twitter has allowed me to get regular updates from health professionals about covid (some of which I have reposted here), 

Thank you, Haji! We appreciate this very much! 

[Guest guest]

twitter sends me tweets. They are pretty useless. A person tweets: LOOK AT THIS! and there is a link to an Instagram account. Should I click on that? I usually do not.

[wolverine]

1 hour ago, Guest guest said:

twitter sends me tweets. They are pretty useless. A person tweets: LOOK AT THIS! and there is a link to an Instagram account. Should I click on that? I usually do not.

Obviously the person wants everyone on Twitter to look at their Instagram. Too lazy to post a tweet with real content. 

[Haji 2003]

1 hour ago, Hameedeh said:

I get 3 emails every day from Twitter asking me to come back.

My tweet was referring to what appears in your timeline within the app. It happens but it is rare for me to get material that is totally irrelevant.

[Haji 2003]

On 1/16/2022 at 11:41 AM, Abu Nur said:

Most of these Social Media platforms, like Twitter or Facebook, their nature mostly encourage and favor to evil content and behaviour.

The following tweet has specific instructions showing how users can manage their twitter account so that it is useful for them:

https://twitter.com/aaditsh/status/1491094779605975040?s=20&t=Sf8h3ojJhpzOQT3WimoDQw

[wolverine]

On 2/9/2022 at 2:37 AM, Haji 2003 said:

The following tweet has specific instructions showing how users can manage their twitter account so that it is useful for them:

https://twitter.com/aaditsh/status/1491094779605975040?s=20&t=Sf8h3ojJhpzOQT3WimoDQw

Very valuable. Thank you.

[Haji 2003]

This is a very useful website for use with Twitter. You can use it to identify whether an account on Twitter is a bot/suspicious or not.

https://botsentinel.com

[Haji 2003]

Musk is getting various broadcasters flagged as being state funded. NPR and BBC not happy

I like this initiative of his.

[Haji 2003]

What social media does NOT cover

I post a fair bit here that is sourced from Twitter, where I think it is useful.

But the article below shows the limitations of social media. The article is not about social media, it is about something quite boring, the pension arrangements of a British retailer. Ths DIY store chain went bust and the pension fund for the employees is short of GBP 70m about US$100m. The owners of the business are accused of having drained money from the business in the preceding years.

What does this have to do with social media?

There are plenty of videos on social media of people belonging to a certain demographic stealing from retailers. The people who allegedly took this US$100m came from another demographic. But there'll be no social media videos about this.
 

Quote

The former ultimate owner of discount retail chain Wilko does not expect to have to help plug the high street chain’s estimated £70.2mn pension hole following its collapse a year ago. 

https://www.ft.com/content/c0d83491-6a26-40f2-81d1-3804ee2bb64b

[Haji 2003]

 

 

[Guest Window]

Social Media is useful sometimes to get your point across succinctly. Ideally, adults should use Social Media to talk about important issues and current events.

Children and teens are better off not using social media and should hang-out with their friends in-person for their social-emotional development instead.

[Abu Nur]

Social media was created to drain your mind and spirit and make you busy in gaflah (heedlessness). All the know platforms that majority people use are made by materialistic devils. What is good is that there are believers who use them to spread light, but because the platforms are lead by devils, they will limit and censor them and make sure that others will mock them.

Right now there are so many channels that talk about Anti Imperialism have been removed.

Edited October 8, 2024 by Abu Nur

[Hajar Allen]

I often feel so alone when I’m posting about Quran and Islamic spirituality on those platforms, but the way I see it, we have to do it to propagate the teachings of Quran and Ahlul Bayt. Remember those publications from Iran like Al-Tawhid? Those have gone online now and our generation has to keep spreading the Knowledge.

[Haji 2003]

Social media vs. MSM

 

 

In contrast, the BBC has this:

Quote

Israeli censorship rules prevent media outlets saying exactly where or what was targeted, but some media outlets say the location was hit by a low-level drone launched from Lebanon - a relatively unsophisticated weapon that appears not to have activated early warning alarms.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dy294gweyo

 

Conveniently the BBC coverage makes it seem as if the targetted building was a civilian community centre.

 

[celestica]

On 1/16/2022 at 6:41 AM, Abu Nur said:

Salaam Aleikum,

Most of these Social Media platforms, like Twitter or Facebook, their nature mostly encourage and favor to evil content and behaviour. Most of their content is based on snap judgements of people that procude conjecture that is mostly wrong and defective. It leads to information that is exatly in nature opposite of what Islam encourage.

The questions is this, why some Scholars (and some themselves have an account there) still allow to make account and posts in these platforms in the positive way (spreading Islam etc), when the platform itself naturally and purposly tend to be an malign?

I guess it’s both for accessibility's sake, and how not being on social media nowadays can hurt your reach. They’re aware most of the youth are using these platforms, as well as the fact some use it as their primary source of information (sadly). Think about how many curious people have used SC to ask very basic fiqh questions that would be available online in their marja’s risala. I’ve even seen people ask those types of questions on a TikTok video and the creator will respond to their comment in another TikTok. The information straight from the source is available, but they don’t know that, so they’re just looking for answers based on the new norm of learning 

Also, social media platforms are solidifying short form content in their algorithms. Literally, in every app you use, you can probably start scrolling and get new recommendations. If they have accounts on these platforms, they can reach a bigger (and newer) audience. 

Besides that, though, I believe there are more negatives than positives. It’s always superior to host one’s own website. No issues with censorship and no trolls like on social media. You aren’t limited to an app’s functions either. On Instagram, it’s impractical to post longer videos or share longer texts. On YouTube, it’s impractical to share images, and so on. An actual website is versatile: you can write blogposts, collect donations, receive messages, share contact info, etc. These are all use cases I can come up with, relevant to a scholar’s needs. But again, I guess having social media is necessary these days, so it doesn’t matter what’s better overall. Scholars will probably continue the use of both tools 

[Haji 2003]

Sticking with Twitter/X

In recent months people have left the platform since it has become more toxic. But I think it's worth staying for comments such as these (by Firas Modad). The 'fake pretexts' the writer is referring to are the lies Campbell concocted for the UN to enable the invasion of Iraq.

[Haji 2003]

This Twitter thread deals with UAE sponsored bot farms in Somalia

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the material. But it is worth a read.