Goodbye 'Muka Buku'!

To Have Or Not To Have?

Rumours are rife amongst gossip mongers that the ever popular social network that has been successful in helping people to make new friends and find long-lost ones, have finally become the latest media to face the penalty.

The penalty in question is the possibility of this social network, Facebook, being disallowed anymore in this dear old country of ours.  It had to come!  And the people in those higher places, have made a statement a few weeks back informing the public of this tentative possibility.  They feel that the discontinuation of this network is timely considering the number of criminal cases, like sexual crimes for example, culminating from the inappropriate use of this social network.  In some cases, people misuse this social tool to trick people into getting involved in bogus businesses while some use it to find sexual partners and create a menage a trois, if you will, and many more. 

However, before steps are taken to permanently stop this social network's services here, perhaps a few other things that other people use it for should also be given serious consideration.  There are some people who use this service to give advice to close friends and relatives; some people use it to find friends whom they have not met for decades; some use it to inform others about impending problems that may affect everyone like natural disasters, just like the flood that happened here a few days ago, and some even use it for teaching purposes just like a teacher would.

What I am trying to say here is, as with everything else, there is always two sides to the coin; the ying and yang of things.  This social network was never created to bring harm.  However, along the way, people have found numerous ways of manipulating it's function and in doing so, have managed to cause a lot of harm to others.  Perhaps actions should be taken against these culprits who misuse this social network and not on the network itself.  After all, with the huge advance in technology that the people in higher places claim we have, it definitely will not be that difficult to identify the perpetrators and charge them!

There is a Malay proverb which, literally translated sounds like this: 'Burn not the mosquito net just because you are angry at a single mosquito'; or in this case, a few mosquitoes.