Blind Share : False Information

People logging into Facebook on a regular basis will notice that a lot of photos are shared by people and if you are an observer to just some of those details of the images you will notice that the images are in many cases not belonging to the context. In some cases, the images make no error, but the caption or the page that shared the image has got nothing to do with the image. Yet, people who share it, never realize it and keep sharing the images.

Today, I logged onto Facebook in the afternoon and found that this one person had shared many images of a page called INDIAN ARMY. At the moment I did not check out the page details, but the images shared were pretty much Indian Army Pics. There were images of some Indian Army Jawans with an Indian Flag and it was pretty much patriotic for the person in my friends list to share it. I come down on my news feed, I find many images from the same page shared by the same person. Among those images I found one image that I found was strange.

If you Observe the snake, Its Clearly an Anaconda. Though a Herpetologist or a Snake Enthusiast would tell you its a Green Anaconda, but A layman would know its an Anaconda. The Image Caption Did not mention anything about The people in the image being the men of Indian Army, but the Caption read “Thats Called Braveness
The Fearless -INDIAN ARMY” . And upon reading the comments for the image it was shown that many people thought this was the Indian Army fighting a Serpent. That was strange. A few of the users did say it was a Green Anaconda and its not seen/found in India, which is true because they are found only in South America, but many chose to ignore this fact. And that is the Phenomenon on Facebook. People see the image, the page title, or the image caption and never really try to understand if its real or not. Here is the link to the real image . And the Caption makes sense, The Brazillian Army (Brazil is in South America , Anacondas are found in Brazil).

I agree that the image does not Mislead people openly, nor does it harm anyone when someone shares it. But you see a lot of images of Hungry Kids (Presumably Beggars), Handicapped People and the caption reads, share this image and Facebook will donate some amount to such people. I know this is a Cliché now, but I believe instead of creating an image to mislead people into believing that Facebook does philanthropy when you share an image, people can simply spread awareness as to donate for charity themselves, rather than making Facebook do it. That could do a lot of Good. Again, I agree that sharing an image like that does not Hurt any person.

Now comes the real deal. On 14th August 2012 I saw an image (Shared by someone from some Patriotic Page) which showed people celebrating with Pakistani Flag. The Caption read, People of Hyderabad celebrating Pakistani Independence Day. The way I saw it, if the image was shared as a link, then no one could make much of a point against it, and it would simply be an image of people celebrating. Then came the Caption below the image which was written by the page admin. It said they were traitors to Indian Nation being in Hyderabad and celebrating Pakistani Independence. And then I see a few of the people I personally know, shared the image. From what could be made out from the image, when the image was shared, Facebook mentioned the page from which it was shared, and that was something Indian Patriotic. So for a layman Indian, when you see the image it tells you, through the page name and caption that it was Hyderabadi (Indian City) people who were celebrating it. In reality it could simply be an image of people in Hyderabad (Pakistani City) who were celebrating their Independence Day.  I did some findings on the image and it was indeed an image from Hyderabad (latter) and they were Pakistanis showing patriotism. But this was Unknown to many people who shared the image. Now I DO NOT agree that sharing that image could not hurt any person. This could start a riot in Hyderabad and rest of India when some one calls the Indian Hyderabadi as Pakistanis or something else and there would be a clash.

Even as I write this blog, and as you read this blog there are millions of images shared on Facebook and all other social networks with the wrong caption, or intention. We may not be able to stop it completely for now, but we sure can look at an image and find out more about the information the image gives and then share it. Think of the consequence it can make. Karma may simply define the consequence of your actions, on you, but then there are ripples created for every action and these can effect lives.
If you don’t have time to research on the image, simply don’t share it, if it is a sensitive content.

Happy Sharing.

PS: The Facebook Page turned out to be the Unofficial page of the Indian Army, but the Content sharing False Information is what we need to watch out for.