Bandits and Good Samaritans on Social media

Online hatred and fake news are the scourges of our time. Social media is the place where people can express themselves without restraint, more or less anonymously. The various networks are even accused of encouraging circulation of the most divisive content.

Jun 09, 2023

(Source photo: Pixabay/Gerd Altmann)


VATICAN: Online hatred and fake news are the scourges of our time. Social media is the place where people can express themselves without restraint, more or less anonymously. The various networks are even accused of encouraging circulation of the most divisive content.

“Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned,” laments Pope Francis in Gaudete et Exultate, his 2018 exhortation “on the call to holiness in today’s world”.

It’s a decades-old question that’s never been resolved — Are there certain criteria that should guide how Catholics use the Internet? The Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication sought to shed greater light on the issue recently by issuing a pastoral reflection on engagement with social media.

The text, Towards Full Presence is aimed at promoting a common reflection on the involvement of Christians in social media and invites us to listen to the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

It may seem surprising that this text was chosen to reflect on today’s cyber culture. But it actually opens our eyes to what’s happening on social networks.

There are those who behave like brigands, when they harass, express their hatred or steal the attention of others. And there are those who are victims of such bad actions.

Then there are those who pass by with indifference along the digital highways. Finally, there are those who act like the Samaritan, healing not only the physical wounds, but also the divisions and animosity that exist between social groups, enabling connections to be transformed into genuine encounters.

It’s true that Christians use various social networks to put up messages, images and videos. But how many are really, truly, and totally present? Not to occupy digital space, but to make social media a place of authentic exchange, in which people genuinely give of themselves and receive from others.

The document looks in particular at what the Christian notion of “neighbour” means in the digital universe.

“Who is my ‘neighbour’ on social media?” asks the document, which brings together a wide range of themes. The text seems to take note of the changes brought about by the interference of digital technology in all dimensions of human life, while the Vatican has for a long time reduced the Internet to a mere “continent” to be evangelised. But this time, Rome seems to be going beyond this simplistic reading.

“Social media ‘neighbours’ are most clearly those with whom we maintain connections. Neighbours are also often those we cannot see, either because platforms prevent us from seeing them or because they are simply not there,” says the new Vatican document. “Recognising our digital neighbour is about recognising that every person’s life concerns us, even when his or her presence (or absence) is mediated by digital means,” it further asserts.

It is in the name of digitally adapting the definition of “neighbour” that the text appeals to the responsibility of Catholics present on social networks.

“When groups that present themselves as ‘Catholic’ use their social media presence to foster division, they are not behaving like a Christian community should,” says Towards Full Presence. “It is possible to find many profiles or accounts on social media that proclaim religious content but do not engage in relational dynamics in a faithful way,” it laments. “Hostile interactions and violent, degrading words, especially in the context of sharing Christian content, cry out from the screen and are a contradiction to the Gospel itself,” the document points out.

“The problem of polemical and superficial, and thus divisive, communication is particularly worrying when it comes from Church leadership: bishops, pastors, and prominent lay leaders,” the text asserts. “These not only cause division in the community but also give permission and legitimacy for others likewise to promote similar types of communication,” it says.--LCI (https://international.la-croix. com)/Vatican News

Total Comments:0

Name
Email
Comments