Sunday, April 17, 2016

The Good and Bad of Facebook

Before it happened to me, I had no idea what it was and how it could rattle you inside-out !!!
But now that I have experienced it, I am completely shaken by this encounter with an invisible stranger, who was lurking somewhere in cyber space, looking for targets and I became one of his/her victim. 
For the first time in so many years of Face-booking I have felt like saying "Go to hell Facebook ... I don't want to see your face again" !!!

For simple unsuspecting and cyber-illiterate people like me, and for that matter for anyone, this hacking activity comes like a mean and nerve shattering experience.
I am still very very nervous. But friends have been extremely supportive and encouraged me to get back.
I don't know how long I will take to get back my confidence and enthusiasm.


From reconnecting with long-lost friends and long-distance relatives, to finding and connecting with a wide range of like-minded strangers, to reaching out to professional contacts, to getting opportunities to expand one's horizons , are all important aspects of such social networking sites. 
Interactions and friend-circle in such cases, therefore cannot always be confined to the people one knows personally.



Hence is it not the responsibility of Facebook to protect its members ?
This is a social networking site open to public across the globe.
Must it not provide more safeguards so that users don't encounter such dangerous and embarrassing situations?
Everyone must have their privacy respected and well protected so that Facebook-ing is a pleasant experience and is free from disgrace, doubt and discomfort even when one is interacting with persons outside of one's own little world.


And as if this trauma and fatigue I went through was not enough, there has been a lot of confusion among friends who were there on my (hacked) account.
It is a rather ajeeb daastaaN :-)smile emoticon
Please read on (with patience) ...smile emoticon
On that original account (which as far as I know has now been deactivated by me after it got hacked the other day ) I had been included in a lot of Facebook groups... many many... countless in fact, most of them I didn't even know !!!
As a result there were too many notifications.
I later learned that there is an option through which I could limit the notifications.
But before this awakening happened, I had created a second profile separating specially my family from this first account and used it mainly for group interactions.
Now after my account was hacked, I was obviously shocked and nervous, and almost decided to write  an obituary to my experience with Facebook.
But friends told me that it is happening all over and with too many people, so I need not hang the gloves just because some sadist criminal sneaked in.
But yes! If at all I want to exercise extreme caution, I should deactivate the hacked account at least for some time, and create a new profile.
I did that.
And came on to another one.
Now, in an interesting turn of events, before this new account came up, friends saw another Zohra Javed, which was actually my second Facebook profile ( that I had created for my family ).

So now there is a flood of inbox messages and huge confusion has spread as far as my Facebook profiles are concerned...
Quite obviously ... I can understand.

Friends are sending warning messages to one another saying "don't accept friend request from her . Her account was hacked. Besides two two Zohra Javeds .... which of the two is the right one  .... oh! well ... you never know ... "

This is so humiliating and taxing for someone who is trying to reconnect with so called friends after a traumatic cyberspace experience. But one cannot blame them either.
Everyone has a right to be safe from malicious intruders.

I was like Hum ne Facebook ko apna waqt diya , mohabbat di, maan-samman diya .... 
Aur Facebook ne hum ko kya diya ... ???
HACKER !!! 
Being an ardent fan of old Hindi Films and songs all this reminds me of Kaviraj Shailendra ji's song:
" Dost dost naa rahaa , pyaar pyaar naa raha ... "
And yes! I will innovate the next line dedicating it to my broken trust in Facebook ...
"Facebook hamein tera aitbaar naa rahaa ... " !!!

Shakespeare could have written a second comedy of errors ... !!!
But I think Gulzar is still around ... So this time "Angoor" ka female and more contemporary version to bann hi sakta hai ...

wink emoticon
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