A society in peril due to social media & how it’s so easy to be swayed by mere rhetoric

The trouble with being emotional is that it does not allow you to be balanced or rational in your views. Social media, in such instances, does nothing to help, only hinder, because it’s so easy to be swayed by mere rhetoric

THIS TOO SHALL PASS
By Punam Bakshi Mohandas

An interesting case came into the limelight recently. A young female lecturer claims she was forcibly asked to resign by the administration of a college in Kolkata, because a male parent complained that his 18-year-old son had seen photos of the lecturer in a swimming costume and that she was, therefore, a detrimental influence on young minds.

Let’s see this case from all angles. The lecturer posted photos of herself in a swimsuit on InstaGram. She claims this was an InstaGram “story” and such stories only stay online for 24 hours. All right, so then some laddie, wanting to indulge his curiosity about his female lecturer, went on InstaGram and saw these photos, upon which his father complained to the said college over the vulgar and obscene photos (adjectives allegedly used by the parent), following which the Vice Chancellor formed a committee, called the lecturer in and asked her to either resign or be terminated. Now, all of this happened in October 2021. In March 2022, the lecturer wrote to the college asking for all documentation pertinent to this issue, which pissed the college off so much for all this gade murde ukhaadna after several months, that it has slapped a Rs99 crore compensation case on her.

The trouble with being emotional people is that it does not allow you to be balanced or rational in your views. Rather typically, the Twitteratti were judge and jury (all rooting for the female lecturer) and the case was done and dusted with before one could blink an eye.

Mind you, there’s been no public statement from that college yet. This being Twitter, one is not allowed to be the voice of dissent or reason. So when I voiced my opinion, I was alternately called hypocritical (huh?), fat (what?!), delusional (by some random Indian woman who apparently lives in Canada and writes pretty poetry{her words}) and someone who admonished me that there can be no two sides of a story that involves abuse (Abuse? Where? When? By whom?).

Furthermore, the lecturer has admitted she posed in the swimsuit in her room when she took the pictures. I had some holier-than-thou morons who clearly hadn’t read the article demanding to know sarcastically what people should wear at the pool, if not a swimming costume. All the above were females.

There was one male response that was outstanding in its imbecility; to my statement that teachers are role models and therefore, ought to conduct themselves with decorum, he replied, “teachers aren’t role models. That’s for parents to be”. My response? ‘I feel so, so sorry for you, because clearly, you’ve been failed on BOTH fronts’!

I have several takes on this entire situation, applicable to all three parties, to wit, the lecturer, the parent/student and the college. Social media and all these photo opportunities are going to be the death of common sense and decorum if it hasn’t been already! Why post private moments in a public space?

Notwithstanding the poor fish who claimed otherwise, teachers are definitely role models for students and it behoves them to be circumspect about their behaviour in public, as well as what they post on social media. Students are always curious to know more about their teachers’ private lives; this is nothing new!

Now, for the parent of that boy. Surely, he should be censuring his 18-year-old son instead, for playing Mr Peek-a-Boo in his teacher’s life!

And now, for that college. These days, employers are increasingly checking employees’ social media to know their views and mindsets and people have been sacked from their jobs over abusive or racist content. I know of one case where a female lecturer asked for medical leave as she was unwell. However, it’s the social media “disease” that cost her her job. Her boss unwittingly came across photos she posted of herself on holiday in a foreign country when she was supposed to be on medical leave – and she was sacked for being unethical. True story!

So yes, this part I can understand, however, the swimsuit photos were posted a couple of months before the lecturer joined that college, so shouldn’t they have done their background check then? How can you penalise someone so drastically for an action that was done before she even joined your organisation? In this case, a written warning ought to have sufficed; sacking her because of one parent’s complaint leaves the field wide open for similar complaints and teachers will always be on tenterhooks now. So there seems to be a missing link here.

Something else that doesn’t add up: If, as the lecturer claims, the InstaGram story is up for only 24-hours and the photo-shoot happened two months before she joined the college, then how did the student get access to these photos?

The lecturer claims her InstaGram account was hacked. She also states she went to the Kolkata Cyber Crime Cell to file a complaint, but the cops refused to do so. Why did they refuse? And what made her write to the college only in March of this year, when she was dismissed in October 2021? Why isn’t the college countering any of this? What made them slap a Rs99 crore case on her?

Random people abusing me on Twitter is water off a duck’s back! They’d do better to employ their time more wisely. What’s far more concerning is how people today refuse to see/listen to both sides of a story before making their own, tiny minds up. People are too easily swayed by rhetoric, by emotion. That’s the real danger of social media…and it’s going to have wide-ranging repercussions!

(The main/featured image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay has been used for illustrative purposes only)

Also by the same author: If Music be the Food of Love, Play On… – THE NEWS PORTER

Punam Bakshi Mohandas is a journalist and writer with 25-plus years of work experience across India, Dubai and Thailand. A nomad at heart, having travelled over 43-countries at last count, Punam is also a film critic. She was a weekly columnist for the Hindustan Times (New Delhi edition), Delhi Midday, The Financial Express, The Statesman and the Times of India (Kolkata edition). She is also the author of the book, ‘Fallen Angels’