One place Christian and Muslim clerics can agree is that social networking media are fraught with danger. One doesn’t have to be religious at all to recognize that the same weaknesses that cross the Internet as a whole are to be found in the social networking sites as well. There’s no simple way to verify ‘information’ carried through the media, but the networks like Facebook, Twitter, and the like all seem to make contact more personal. One thinks he is talking with another individual, and that may well be the case. But it is also possible that one is speaking with a member of a group, with an agenda, merely replaying what are known as ‘talking points’, items that promote a particular point of view in a more or less coordinated way. This needn’t be considered insidious; in fact, someone posting something may not even be aware of its provenance or intent. If it ‘sound right’, it will be repeated without much thought.

Instant communications have been a blessing in many ways, but they’ve also been a bane. They’ve made it harder to discern fact from non-fact, wishful thinking, or outright lies. Often, the best one has to go on are feelings, not the most reliable of senses. Because feelings don’t have to go through any process of reason, they are particularly susceptible to becoming pure emotion, where hatred and disdain are all too easily communicated.

Gulf News reports on agreement between the Pope and Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti about the caution necessary to avoid the dangers of social networking…

Saudi Mufti, Pope urge caution with social media
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti and Pope Benedict XVI have urged people to “exercise proper discernment in the face of the surfeit of stimuli and data” that they receive on the internet
Habib Toumi

Manama: Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti and Pope Benedict XVI have urged people to “exercise proper discernment in the face of the surfeit of stimuli and data” that they receive on the internet.

In Riyadh, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh said people cannot take the social-networking website Twitter as the source of their knowledge if they do not really know who is behind the posted comments.

“Twitter is used to issue fatwas [religious edicts] without evidence or substantiation,” the mufti said. “It is used as a platform to spread lies by some people who seek fame by insulting and denigrating other people,” he said in his Friday sermon in Riyadh.

“People should be well aware of such dangers. The site should not be used to exchange accusations or to misquote people. Muslims should be careful not to be drawn into wrong acts and must instead engage in constructive criticism,” he said.
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