Gloomy scene dominates social media

The local social media scene was sad this past week. From the horrible crime that took place in Asir mosque to a couple of hashtags mirroring the shoddy side of our society, the activities on various platforms presented a gloomy picture.
With the bomb blast in the mosque, all social media platforms exploded with anger and condemnation. In the workplace or at homes, people were glued to their phones and tablets following the breaking news in real time, with images, videos and discussions. For many of us, social media platforms and the official accounts tweeting and sharing news were the only trusted sources of information that told us what was happening on the ground in those difficult hours.
Thereafter, and once people came out of the shock, social media became the platform for most of us to show support and unity, to share condolences and discuss the problem. Why would someone from among us decide to kill us? To attack us at the holiest of all places where people are praying to God and seeking his mercy.
No matter how important and necessary the flow of opinion, ideas and discussions are to solve the problem, there are a lot of works we all need to do to translate those discussions into action plans and aim to find the root cause of the problem.
In a day or so after the flurry of activity following the bombing incident in the Asir mosque, Twitter took us back to reality with two ugly hashtags.
The first one was chronicling the bad habits we take with us whenever we go abroad. The images projected through the endless tweets and posts using that hashtag were shameful — someone strolling down an airport in nothing but his “traditional” underwear, and a family cooking food and smoking hubbly bubbly a few meters from the Eiffel Tower! To this moment, I am really hoping someone would come up and say that those images were fake or photoshopped!
What added insult to the injury is the accompanying circulation (also unverified!) about a city council in one of the European countries demanding more control on the issuance of visas to us. I really hope that this part is also exaggerated, but in all cases, it is a harsh reminder that we need to go through and revise some of our actions that we take and do for granted. Being able to travel should mean that you are capable of observing and learning and showing respect to other people’s customs and traditions.
It did not take long for another ugly hashtag to crop up. This dealt with discrimination and derogatory clashes between people using their origins and blood ties as reasons for the onslaughts. Going through that hashtag was like traveling back in time, you end up filled with pain and sorrow seeing young minds using the technology of the 21st century to resurrect enmities died hundreds of years ago.
In a way, although these events differ in severity, they are not totally separate from each other. They are entangled deep at the roots of our society; how we see each other, and how we interact with each other. The social media, after all, is nothing but the mirror that reflects our deeds and activities, showing the good and remarkable, the bad and ugly!