Information and knowledge

We hear a lot about the way that our text messages, tweets, Facebook posts and emails are going to be or are being monitored. The youth police commissioner recently resigned because of the content of one of her tweets, and although it is useful to be reminded that there is always someone watching you and that we need to employ restraint in all of our public communications was this really necessary, and is the way that our communication is monitored necessary and is it fair?

The “official” line is that the authorities need to monitor our internet activity so that terrorism can be better dealt with. But surely the authorities have been monitoring internet activity since its advent?  I have heard some people refer to this situation as akin to “big brother” monitoring all of our communications but “big brother” needs to do this doesn’t he? Are we not all safer if the authorities are making note of anything suspicious in the hope of preventing atrocities?

Who else then has access to our information? The truth is that just about everyone does. There isn’t really any regulation that protects us as users of (particularly) social media sites. Every time you make a comment online it is recorded and can be recalled. Is it really the authorities who are monitoring us on a microscopic scale? How did the ex-youth commissioner’s comments come to light? I suspect that it wasn’t the authorities that brought this to light at all. It was the media, wasn’t it? As has been said, “it is better that this young person rebuilds her life away from the intense media scrutiny”.

Sensationalism sells and unfortunately we are buying it. If some in the media live by their own high standards, should they really even still be broadcasting to the general public? Do we need to mention specifically all the instances where they have overstepped the mark in the hope of selling newspapers, for example? The truth is that every time a new person comes into the spotlight for good or ill, journalists young and old trawl the internet for anything they can find to sell a story. They probably don’t mean to do any harm, they are only trying to make a living. But when they find something for their story, they sell it to the highest bidder, and once the media get hold of it it spirals into the inevitable machination of a person, ideal, or political stance at best, or the distress and grief of an overburdened family at worse.

If we look in the word of God, something which we don’t do as often as we should, we see clearly that the behaviour of some in the media, as well as the behaviour of the people they talk against, is just as much open to criticism as anything that is reported. For example, the book of Proverbs states clearly that it is foolish and sinful to malign your neighbour. Some in the media have noticed the foolishness of a young lady’s comments but have failed to recognise their own failings. We are also told in the word of God that love prospers when a fault is forgiven. We will never know now, whether showing mercy to this young lady would have evoked an expression of gratitude which might have reached out and affected our much troubled youth of today. The truth is that love covers over wrong for good. Most seem to be incapable of doing this.

Those in positions of responsibility are put there by God and they are his servants (as is said in the Bible, for punishing those who do wrong and for honouring those who do right) but because of the intense media glare and the pressure this produces, those in positions of authority cannot show compassion. The decision to get rid of this person from her position had already been made by the masses, since the media not only ride the wave of popular opinion but they also create the wave!

We are not all kings, but whether we live in a palace or a hut, we have a duty to live responsibly and affect for good the world we live in. The unfortunate truth is that some aspects of the media are not helping us to live compassionate lives in a world where love is little known. It seems that some parts of the press operate in their own way and under their own supervision and if they get it wrong they can make a shallow and hypocritical, pretentious apology and start their business again under a different name. The ex-youth police commissioner made a full, frank, and sincere apology for an immature mistake and she wasn’t shown even the faintest hint of mercy.

As human beings we are all, to some extent, regulated by our own sense of right and wrong but we are for the most part not in the least bit interested in what God has to say about the matter. But it’s clear that we are seeing double standards in some parts of the media and this is something that God hates. I hope it isn’t just me who recognises the presentiment of these double standards. We need to be courageous enough to not only oppose what is wrong and stand up for what is right but to also forgive and forget. This will benefit us much more in cases like this one, I am sure.

You can’t write a person off for making a mistake. Imagine if God wrote us off every time we made a mistake. Where would we be then?