Social dialogue

- Nadira Gunatilleke

The scourge of panic texts and emails

Today we are going to discuss a very important issue which affects our day to day lives. That is rumours, gossip and well organised publicity crusades. Making people panic using SMS, emails, rumours and all the other available techniques is a very common crime these days.

Who are involved in this type of crimes ? How do they perform it ? Why do they do it ? This is very important these days because different elements achieve different things by panicking the public.

The persons who are involved in this type of acts are mentally sick, abnormal, taking revenge from someone or getting paid very well by a hidden force. There are certain persons who always try to make trouble for another person and gain mental satisfaction out of it. Another group of persons do all sorts of strange things and gain mental satisfaction including spreading rumours. If they can see a person scream out of pain they watch and enjoy it.

The most dangerous section is the group which get paid for their 'work'. They use the Short Message Service (SMS) very cheaply available through all telecommunication service providers and make the public panic.

They also use emails very often. Anyone can send any number of emails at any time from anywhere in the world but at the same time they can keep their real identity a secret. They can use anyone's name, official addresses, etc without fear to gain credibility to their fabricated warnings.

These persons use whatever materials are available for them to panic the public. They are not afraid to use even the names and other details of actual persons for their 'work'. Their main intention is spreading panic and fear among the public pretending that they are the rescuers of the public.

There are many methods that used by these persons. One of the main methods is pretending that they warn the public on certain dangers ! They say that this might happen, that might happen, be careful and take care of yourself. Sometimes they love not only you but your family and friends ! It seems they have sacrificed their whole life to rescue the world.

How generous and dangerous they are !

It is very difficult to identify these persons. They are among us, just behaving like normal persons. But you can guess if a person related the same story again may be 25 times a day with huge enthusiasm.

None of us likes to relate an experience or news over and over again not more than ten times per day. But if someone do so, you have a reason to suspect his/her real intention.

"Oh he was in the bus....he got down suddenly when we noticed him......he vanished into the crowd of people without a trace within seconds.....don't know where he went and what he was going to do......, "Oh you know a person got into the vehicle of one of my friend's friend and forced him to take him to town X....when they reach there that person had removed the skin of his face ! You may have heard hundreds of such `thriller stories' these days. But did you wait a second and think what he/she gains from repeating it again and again and how true it could be ?

Why are these persons doing this ? May be they are getting paid very well by certain forces.

May be they are doing well organised publicity campaigns. Then what can be the intention of elements which pay them ? It can be creating havoc in the country and making life missable for the ordinary people which will prompt them to hate everything.

Panicking the public is one thing and raising awareness is entirely different. One can easily do the former by warning them or requesting them to take care of themselves and their loved ones at personal level. This is the best way to panic the public. Unfortunately the people become victims due to the failure to identify this.

Identifying a rumour and a real warning is very easy and simple. All you have to do believe what directly comes from the relevant authorities with responsibility. If a responsible authority requires to issue a real warning to the public it uses mass media but not invalid and informal channels such as email. So look around for parcels without owners but not for funny emails. That will save not only one but hundreds of lives.