Facebook’s rapid SA growth is changing and replacing the moral compass

Exposé

Facebook’s rapid SA growth is changing and replacing the moral compass.

By Tahir Sema

South Africa is among the top 10 countries (outside the United Kingdom and the United States) in order of active facebook users in the world. As of March 2009 South Africa had more then 1.2 million active users. When compared to three months earlier, the number of active users in SA grew by a mind blowing 33.4%. The rapid increase in active users puts the youth and various other age groups of this country at risk, changing their perceptions and replacing their moral/religious values, with a fantasy world of immorality in which the race is on, to be perceived as the “most desired”.

For those whom haven’t used or heard of the social networking site before (I doubt there are many). The modern day marvel Facebook, can be described as “a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment.” Facebook Press Room.

Facebook is the second most-trafficked site in the world, with over 200 million active users who have returned to the site in the last 30 days. The rapid growth of this website has been witnessed all over the world, more noticeably in certain countries such as: Turkey, Australia, France, Sweden, Norway, Colombia and South Africa.

The social effects Facebook has on the youth of South Africa, is worrying. It has promoted a culture of promiscuity and is threatening to kill social interaction. Though the effects cannot be scientifically measured, as evidence, startling trends among the youth and even older age groups have emerged, below a few of them with catastrophic consequences will be discussed.

Many youth due to the lack of self control, loose hours each day to socializing online and flirting with total strangers, friends and family.

More recently professional Photographers in South Africa have experienced a tremendous boost in earnings year on year, as a result of Facebook. An immeasurable amount of active Muslim users in South Africa are now going to professional photographers to have their pictures taken, so they may appear more desirable, as voted by their friends.

Based on research conducted among a wide set of Muslim Facebook users, provocative, seductive and revealing pictures made up the majority of pictures uploaded and categorized into albums by individual users. According to Facebook more than 850 million photos are uploaded to the site each month.

Keeping the site nice and clean has proved to be a huge challenge for the 850 plus members Facebook employs. Semi formal rules were developed by its staff to weed out disgusting pictures, among these semi formal rules are the Exposed Butt Rule, the Crack Rule and the Nipple Rule. Members of the site can report offensive pictures, which would immediately go to the more then 150 staff members assigned to carry out policing duties for the website. On any given day the team deals with over 400000 obscene pictures.

Unfortunately Facebook is becoming a site for wild and crazy kids in South Africa and the world over. There are more than 30 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices, mainly youth. 150 mobile operators in 50 countries are working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products on a daily basis.

For a conservative Muslim population in South Africa, Facebook has proved to have disastrous effects when abused. The social networking site is slowly warping people’s perceptions. An extract from a Muslim girl’s Facebook over the weekend;

“OMG!!! (Oh my God) WTF (What the Fu**) happened last night??? I don’t remember anything!!! Later on during the day, while explaining to her inquisitive friends what had happened the night before, she said “I drank a whole lot! not just storm! STORM DOESNT MAKE ME DRUNK LOL” (laugh out Loud). The girl responsible for these comments lives with her parents and comes from a respectable and conventional Muslim home.

Another incident, published on Facebook two weeks ago, was by a 16 year old girl, attending a well known Muslim school in Johannesburg, it read as follows; “Thanks to my friends X and Y for the awesome weekend, I can’t believe we almost got caught while we were high on weed and other stuff ha ha”.

Facebook is not just killing social interaction; it is turning a conservative Muslim population into a shameless one. Many Muslim youth have displayed a similar behavior, and revealed disgusting facts about themselves and what they have been up to in pictures, video and words. This kind of behavior has become acceptable by the Muslim youth because many participate in a similar kind of shameful behavior, which is now viewed as “normal”, in what may, at times be defined as a desperate bid to attract the opposite sex. This kind of interaction online helps one build their social profile to “very cool”, “most spontaneous “very fun” and “very desirable.” These tags will ultimately be placed on your profile for everyone to see.

Both Male and female are using the social networking site as a tool, to market themselves to the opposite sex. All Facebook users I have spoken to claim to have people on their “friends list” that they have never met or seen before. An anonymous Muslim female who is a Facebook user claims to get 2 new invites from random guys on a daily basis; she adds “I am not complaining. I like the attention; most guys invite me or want to chat to me because of my profile pictures”.

Many e-books exist on the internet on how to pick up girls on Facebook, pitching the networking site as the ultimate playing field for pick-ups.

The Facebook debate has always centered on the question is it killing real social interaction or not? More importantly it is eroding our moral compass and promoting a promiscuous society, devoid of values, religious laws and regulations.

The rapid increase in Facebook’s numbers for South Africa is unsettling, as the youth fall victim to its fantasy world. A 33.4% increase in SA users in fewer than four months are figures that would go down in technology and history books, but this is not the end, not nearly. Growth of active users is expected to double and quadruple in the near future, to be precise, in no more then a year’s time.

The Muslim youth’s perceptions of themselves have changed and continue to change, due to social networking sites, lack of self control and a weak set of values. The lack thereof has made them openly display behavior that is at best immoral by any standards and at its worst simply hideous.