Dear Amitabh,
I have sympathy with persons who are hurled abuses on the internet and are quite helpless, having experienced similar situation. I had not known the person who decided to indulge in my character assassination, without any provocation- perhaps he did not agree with my perspective on few issues !
Legal recourse of filing a defamation case is quite long-drawn and may not be worth the trouble and expense. The only viable option is to ignore such messages, till other persongets tired out and finds some other poor target. A sense of humor, in dealing with such situation, is highly desirable ! KEEP YOUR COOL and IGNORE !
Dhirendra krishna
--- In rti4empowerment@yahoogroups.com, Amitabh Thakur <amitabhth@...> wrote:
>
> Friends,
>
>
> A long write-up on Facebook, which some of you might agree with. Would like to have your reactions please.
>
> Amitabh ThakurÂ
> amitabhth@..., amitabhthakurlko@...
>
> # 094155-34526
>
>
> An Idiot on Facebook
> Â
> As stated in an
> earlier post, it is not all that easy to write something on Facebook without
> the possibility of getting rebuked or severely attacked. More so when you are
> trying to write something which you think is a satirical piece.
> Â
> I got the taste
> of writing satire on Facebook when after my piece on Boston police encounter, I
> was told to wake up and
> stop hallow bragging and also to limit myself towriting a few “I, me,
> myself†kind of puerile poems. As if this was not enough, I later cane to know
> of another post by a gentleman named Sujit Sarkar. Sarkar saheb is not directly
> connected to me as a friend on FB but we have a common friend Madhu Rayala. Mr
> Madhu shared by post on his wall which, it seems, was read by Mr Sarkar and it
> made him so infuriated that he immediately wrote-“I first thought of
> writing a long piece to puncture this idiot Thakur, but then I realized it
> would be a waste of my time.†He followed it by-“There is a saying in Bengali: Akashay
> tara, fora! Roughly translated, it means the comparison of star in space with
> the imagined star in between the hind cheeks when upturned and viewed from
> above. 5 year olds are getting raped every other day and this scoundrel decides
> to write utter crap on his maiden post LOL.â€
> Thus
> Mr Sarkar, who studied at the prestigious St Xavier’s College in Kolkata, could
> immediate decipher, conclude and declare that this Thakur is an idiot and is
> also a scoundrel. Idiot means a person who has a less developed mind, not fully
> developed in nature. In a way, an imbecile or a fool. A scoundrel, on the other
> hand, is a crook, a rascal or a villain. Prima-facie it would seem that a
> person who is an idiot would not be a scoundrel at the same time, the
> characteristics of the two being so much opposite to each other. Yet, Mr Sarkar
> suo-motu concluded that I am not only an idiot but also a scoundrel, two things
> very difficult to happen simultaneously. What is even more remarkable is that
> he could grasp this fact still not comprehended by many of my close friends, so
> quickly only through a small piece of literature.
> Mr Sarkar is not the
> only Facebook user who grasps things so swiftly and is able to place another
> person so correctly in a jiffy. Again it is not that getting condemned or abused
> on Facebook is limited to satirical writing. Many a times even some serious
> write up may land you in such a soup where people not agreeing with you or
> completely disagreeing with you, start denigrating you so as to hurl the
> choicest of expletives. There may be occasions when the disagreement of views
> may not be tolerated at all.
> Â
> What is interesting
> to note is that many a times the persons making such disparaging remarks may be
> complete strangers to you but the way they present their views in an extremely
> confident manner, declaring you an idiot or a buffoon or a fool or a nincompoop
> or imbecile or coward or mad or anything else, is really amazing. It shows how
> much vista Facebook has opened for all those dormant talents that had so far
> remained hidden because of the lack of suitable technological methods. To
> express oneself has been one of the greatest human desires and innate needs and
> Facebook has come as a great facilitator for this.
> Â
> I don’t know how
> things are shaping up in other countries, particularly the Western nations
> where possibly the fear and respect for law and respect of fellow human beings
> is higher than what we see in India, but in India Facebook has brought a
> free-for-all situation where a Digvijay can be turned into a Dogvijay in a day
> just because he has angered a set of people through his comments as regards an
> individual whom these people had started reposing their faith. No one is being
> spared and all the public figures are facing the daily threat of getting soaked
> in these juiciest of words the moment a few individuals or a group do not like
> any of their acts, actions, words, statements, policies and what not.
> Â
> Respect for law is possibly not one of our strong points
> and in a land where a very large number of people don’t even fear stringent laws
> related with murder, rape, terrorism, bride burning and such other extremely
> serious and heinous crimes, it is quite obvious that a mild law like Defamation
> as defined in section 499 IPC whose penalty in section 500 IPC is simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine,
> or with both, would hardly have the ability to instill fear in the minds of the
> people about thinking twice before uttering or before putting their thoughts.
> Â
> Facebook has ushered us in
> an era of free speech where we can all state whatever we feel like and if ever law
> tries to catch up with any of us, all of us start yelling together that our
> fundamental right has been infringed. Thus “Rights without duties†being one of
> our powerful traits, a whole set of Facebook users are today seen abusing,
> denigrating, maligning, defaming, pouring acidic scorn on other people, feeling
> quite safe that the Fundamental Right to freedom of expression, together with
> the poor implementation of law, will come as a great saviour to us.
> Â
> Till the time there was no
> Facebook, anyone who wants to condemn others (public figures, authorities or
> anyone else), had to come out of our houses, gather a group of people and then
> shout slogans so that they may be heard by “whom it may concern.†There was the
> added fear of ending on wrong side of. Now the same thing can be done through
> the click of a mouse, without much pain or efforts and in one go we are able to
> inflate any person’s prestige and position.
> Â
> Many of us are using this
> power with the new found vigour and eagerness and the result is a public
> platform where many a times we see everything except a sense of responsibility.
> Â
> It may hurt a few of such
> free-for-all users, the great votaries of the freedom of speech, but the fact
> remains that denigrating a person out of the bloom, without any rational or
> without any substance, many a times based on sheer presumption or personal
> preferences or ideological differences, is certainly not good for any
> responsible society because any society that cheers and lauds irresponsibility is
> bound to have loose respect for law and this is naturally going to further
> worsen the societal order.
> Â
> When I say all this, never
> for once do I want to say that there shall be throttling of mouth or silencing
> of voice. All I want to say is that each one of us, who luckily got this power
> of expression through Facebook, shall realize that this power needs to be used
> with a great sense of responsibility. The concept of self-restrain and
> self-regulation seems to be the need of the hour while using Facebook. We shall
> also understand that respect for dignity of other human beings is a sin-qua-non
> for every civilized society and any word spoken or written shall always be with
> a great sense of responsibility.
> Â
> Â
> Otherwise, the phrase “power
> without responsibility†may soon turn into Damocles’ sword hanging on each
> person’s neck where every other FB user would be seen using words like idiot or
> scoundrel for others just because he does like the person’s face, his nose, his
> hair style, his political party, his caste, his creed, his ideology, his
> statements, his write ups or any other thing in this world.
> Â
> Amitabh
>
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