Is the 'share' button innocent?

(Baonghean) - Not long ago, a false rumor appeared on social networks but was presented in a more convincing form: A clip showing a person peeling mangoes - a specialty of the Southern region - with a fabricated comment that these are artificial mangoes originating from China, with a layer of plastic film inside the seeds. This clip was spread quickly by the like, share buttons and comments on social networks, leading to an increase in fear in the community because of unsafe food originating from China.

And of course, the people who suffer the most are the farmers who grow this mango variety, when their agricultural products cannot be sold due to malicious rumors.

Illustration: Internet

This is not the first time netizens have pressed the like and share buttons on fabricated rumors on social networks in large numbers. Previously, this situation has also happened many times with rumors about the Ebola epidemic coming to Vietnam, about the phenomenon of child kidnapping, about eating grapefruit causing cancer, about the film covering mangoes originating from Taiwan containing toxic substances, about durian soaked in toxic chemicals and recently, rumors about people dying or having to go to the emergency room because of eating sea fish after the phenomenon of mass fish deaths in the central sea...

Those rumors mostly cause fear and confusion in the community, creating serious consequences for those involved and for the whole society when causing psychological crisis and more seriously affecting the economy and social security and order. Many times, farmers growing grapefruit, mango, raising fish... have suffered losses and been in trouble because of such false rumors.

According to the definition of Sociology, rumors are fabricated information, untrue or with very little truth, rumors appear and spread by word of mouth in the community due to the information crisis (too much or too little information). Today, rumors have another channel of spread besides word of mouth, which is social networks. Social networks have a much faster rate of spreading rumors and cause much more harm than word of mouth.

Vietnamese people have early and easy access to social networks, so the speed of social network development in our country is very fast, creating a large community called "netizens" (according to a study, there are about 40 million social network accounts in Vietnam, using hundreds of different social network sites, of which the most popular are sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Zing me, Google+, Webtretho, Lamchame, Vatgia...).

However, the social media usage skills of Vietnamese "netizens" have not kept up with the speed of development and expansion of this technology application, leading to both tragic and comical stories and unpredictable consequences for society. This is because the level of awareness and sense of responsibility of social media users towards themselves and the community is still low, leading to a lack of consideration, judgment, and distinction between right and wrong in the types of information they like, share and comment on. As long as the rumor is about issues they are interested in, are upset about or are current issues, they will freely like and share without thinking about the consequences.

They cannot distinguish between false rumors and the truth, so they easily get caught up in them and contribute to creating waves of rumors on social networks, causing harmful consequences.

Illustration: Internet

Because Vietnamese netizens' use of social networks is not yet mature, they are easily lured by bad people to spread rumors and share sensational information, with the purpose of attracting likes and views, to destroy opponents, and even to oppose the government and the Party.

Many people think that a like button, a share button, a malicious comment under the rumors will not create any impact, but in fact, it can change the truth, create unnecessary public pressure on the authorities at all levels and then, other unpredictable consequences. In recent years, it has become almost familiar for authorities and government agencies at all levels to struggle to deal with media crises from rumors originating from social networks.

Social networks are a product of the development of science and technology, it is not at fault in itself, the fault lies in the awareness and consciousness of the users. If the majority of netizens use their social network accounts responsibly, with understanding, consideration and thinking, it will certainly create a civilized and useful network environment. On the contrary, it will cause consequences that even they themselves can hardly imagine. The "like" and "share" buttons are not as innocent as they think!

Bao Ngan