Social media (at least Facebook and Instagram; not sure about Twitter) allows you to switch off showing reactions to posts. Given the polarisation that has engulfed this nation and made it, more or less, at par with our neighbour to the west, where everything is coloured with religious lenses, coupled with the fact that people from one country like to go and leave laughter likes on news of tragedies in what they see as their ‘enemy’ countries, it might be a good idea to use this feature.
Pakistanis coming and leaving laugh reacts and snide comments on news posts about the recent tragedy (and this is not new; it is something I have seen happen increasingly in the past few years, and on and by both sides) have invariably Muslim-sounding names (because, and this is no surprise, they are indeed overwhelmingly Muslim), which are, for obvious reasons, indistinguishable from Indian Muslim names. The problem is that Indians, who are now polarised to an extent as to logic, reason, or even cool-headedness being so far back in the cobwebs of our history as to make no difference in 2021, take a look at these names and become more and more prejudiced against Indian Muslims, a prejudice that then has outlets far from just trolling, name-calling, and threatening on social media and translates into real-world actions that endanger more than just innocent lives, but the very fabric of our nation.
Would it be possible for news and media outlets to simply switch off comments and reacts on their posts about such incidents because none of these (even the best reactions and comments) are actually adding any value to the news being reported? Or in the world of channel-eat-channel where TRPs are above national security or indeed the idea of India, is that asking for too much?
