Social Media ‘Weapon Of Mass Distraction’, Observes High Court Judge

Margao: In a scathing observation, Justice Mahesh Sonak of the Goa bench of Bombay High Court said on Saturday that social media or mass media have become weapons of mass distraction, but no concerted efforts are being made to tackle them.

Addressing students of GR Kare College of Law here during a lecture series ‘GRK-Law Talks’, Justice Sonak said that he prefers to remain “uninformed” on certain matters by not reading or seeing the news as that is “better than being misinformed,” reported PTI.

“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 human beings that attempt to think,” he observed.

“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,” Justice Sonak said.

“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,” he added.

“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,” he opined.

The judge further said he had been on a “news diet” for four years.

“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,” he remarked.