Internet Bloggers, Reporters, Rumor Mongers and the Zombies
Who is not caught and entangled in the world wide web of the internet?
Almost everyone is caught in it, whether you are using the internet or not, your existence today is affected by it, because in this Information Age, even those who are still stuck in the Stone Age cannot escape from the tentacles of the matrix controlling the stream of consciousness of humans in every nook and cranny of the earth. No matter how you pretend and try to avoid the internet, you will one day be faced with its inevitability when you have to use the computer that comes in the form of the mobile phone that has become the most irresistible gadget in the world today, because it is now imperative for everyone to use it in daily communication. It is an oddity or rarity to see anyone who does not use a mobile phone today and once you use the mobile phone, you are soon caught in the World Wide Web and soon join in the communication hub of the earth.
The internet is now dictating the way humans communicate from the closet to the street and from the street to the government. The internet has swayed the momentum of human consciousness in billions of conversations going on the internet; helping to sway passions in political thoughts that ignited the Orange Revolution in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring in the Middle East with the flood of tears and blood of the victims, the casualties of the consequences in different circumstances caused by the legions of sung and unsung heroes and villains And the social media is the most important catalyst of the internet. The social media is the greatest thing that has happened in the evolution of human communication since the caveman discovered how to make cave drawings. All you need to join us is just an access to the internet and it is a roller coaster ride all the way! The social media gives you the space to exercise the freedom of speech as never done before and the only powers that can control and stop you are the gatekeepers and they are the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their partners, the publishers and owners of the millions of websites in the World Wide Web from Google to Facebook and the rest of us. . They cannot control your thoughts and conversations, but they can either approve them or disapprove them. They are the ones who have unleashed their legions of bloggers, reporters and rumor mongers on the rest of humankind, exchanging and sharing billions of accounts of stories of whatever is happening on earth, both fact and fiction and leave the choices to their audiences who are regular followers and invisible visitors from different locations and backgrounds in the world. The rest of humans who have not joined the viral conversations are more or less becoming zombies in the world.
It is necessary to separate the sheep from the goats, those who report and tell the truth from those who report and tell lies on the internet, because they are heroes and villains of the zombies who are swayed by the information of their masters. Of course, before the emergence of the internet, the world has always been inhabited by the good, the bad and the ugly and their zombies. So, the internet as a product of humans will always be inhabited by the same characters found everywhere among us. The internet has only given us all more freedom to say whatever we want to say and often escape from behind our small or big computers. But we must separate the wheat from the chaff in all things. Therefore, let us know the rumor mongers among bloggers and reporters on the millions of websites on the internet.
Do not accept everything you see on the internet until you are sure of it is a fact. The same internet also helps us to find out the fact as falsehoods are debunked and refuted even before the sunset unlike before when there was no internet and news reporters published both confirmed and unconfirmed news of events and incidents which the ignorant and unsuspecting readers cannot verify until the following day or even longer when the falsehoods would have done damages to reputations, and even caused the loss of lives and properties before the people knew that it was a foolish and unnecessary conflict.
Rumors spread by the mainstream media have even provoked riots and caused wars. But the internet has made it possible for everyone to report or tell what fact is or fiction instantly without censorship of the editors or owners of the press. And in fact, the internet would have averted the catastrophic world wars and other wars if it existed before then as the information for or against the arguments of these human conflicts would have gone viral and diffused before they could explode before our very eyes and millions of the lives lost would have been saved. Would Adolf Hitler have succeeded today?
No! Because, he would not have been able to fool millions of Germans to accept his Final Solution for the extermination of the Jews in Europe and the holocaust would have been averted. The internet has made us all wiser!
The internet has given us all the possibilities of what dialogue can do for humanity and honestly the positives are a million times more than the negatives, because everyone can easily sort out the odds and ends on the internet and life goes on, even the zombies will no longer be fooled and misled by their masters.
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, August 1, 2012, Lagos, Nigeria.
Michael Chima is the most popular African blogger with over 30 blogs and the author of Children of Heaven, Sleepless Night, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe, In the House of Dogs and co-author of Naked Beauty. His new books The Prophet Lied, and Barack Obama and the American Dream will be released before Christmas. He is also a TV/Film producer and Founder of the annual Eko International Film Festival in Lagos, Nigeria.
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