Social media a ‘weapon of mass distraction’: Bombay High Court judge

NEW DELHI

Justice Mahesh Sonak of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court stated on Saturday that social media or mass media have become weapons of mass distraction, but there are no concerted efforts yet to tackle them.

While addressing the students of GR Kare College of Law in Margao town during a lecture series ‘GRK-Law Talks’, Justice Sonak stated that he prefers to remain “uninformed” about several issues by not reading or seeing the news, which he thinks is “better than being misinformed”.

He stated, “Today, we live in an age where we adore and glorify machines like computers and smartphones that think. But we are extremely suspicious or even wary of the human beings that attempt to think.”

Justice Sonak stated, “Artificial intelligence has its own merits, but it would be a sad day and sad world if we were to mortgage our ability to think, our ability to make intelligent and, moreover, sensitive choices, to a machine or an algorithm, however intelligent it may be.”

He added, “We should not want to atrophy our thinking faculties lest there is no difference between a human being and a machine. We cannot, or at least we should not, let humankind be robbed of its humanity.”

Justice Sonak stated that this capacity to think clearly, independently and fearlessly would enable a student to sift, discern, and, if necessary, reject the ideas and ideologies that are perpetually inflicted by mass media tools that are growing powerful each hour.

He opined, “A few decades ago, the world was at war against WMDs – weapons of mass destruction. Today, social media or the mass media have become weapons of mass distraction and yet there are no concerted efforts to battle them.”
The judge stated that in his own way, by way of experimentation, he has been on a “news diet” for almost 4 years.

He added, “By not reading or seeing the news, I realise that I am uninformed about several issues. But I guess this is better than being misinformed. So, the choice, often, is between uninformed and misinformed.”

President of Vidya Vikas Academy Nitin Kunkolienkar, Vice President Pritam Moraes and Principal of the college Doretti Simoes were present at the event.