In the first point, the users either male or female, teens, spouses use Facebook to express their feelings of hatred, sorrow, frustration, anger and also reveal the flaw of someone at their account’s status. When this happen, people will start to give comments on it, criticize it. Although their first intention of doing it is just to release their stress or to share the problems with others to find solutions, without realizing it, those attitudes can be categorized as an act of contracted, spread slander which is forbidden according to the Islamic law. This point can be supported with this example, where the researchers get from Mail Online News, date 4th May 2008, written by Hull,L., entitled Husband murdered wife before killing himself after confessed on Facebook she will leave him. It is being reported that Mr. Grinhaff, 41 years old, an electrical engineer have murdered her wife, Tracey Grinhaff, leave their two children after her wife confessed to her friends on facebook that they are currently spitting from each other. He killed her wife first and later on killed himself.
Moving to the next effect is, too much photos being upload by female gender into the site which can increase male’s sexual desires. As a normal human being, all of us understand that women are the creatures, who love men to praise them as beautiful, young and to have smooth and fair skin. They upload in all sexy and photogenic styles, hoping men would give comments on it and they do it! Some of them praise their beauty, but the dangerous thing is that some of the men even dare ask the women to satisfy their sexual desires and what is surprising that those female users who should act aggressively against the negative comments just leave it on their wall post without feelings of shame and guilt.
It is also a dangerous website in terms of, the user can falsify their true gender. For example, a man create a user’s account, disguise as female, so that the account will be approved by other female users, which their target user is typically young and pretty ladies. Once being approved, they will get access to all of their victim’s information and do all the things that they please with their photos! Another issue which researchers seems relate to this Facebook effect is, the falsified of age. A man, falsified his age, where in reality, he is old but pretend to be teens so that he can be friend with young girls. Researchers can authorized this fact with this case, reported happen in London on the 9th of March 2010, from The Sunday Times by Norfolk, A. He mention in his article, Peter Chapman, 33 years old, a homeless sex offender who posed as a handsome teenager used photographs of an unknown teenager to reinvent himself on Facebook as “a bare-chested, good-looking boy in his late teens” who soon became friends with more than 100 young women on the social networking site. One of his victims here is Ashleigh Hall, 17 years old, who believed that “Pete Cartwright” as a real 19 years old teen. It is also being reported by Norfolk that Chapman tells the girl that his father, Chapman himself will take and bring her to meet his son, “Pete Cartwright”. When the girl enters, he drives, kidnap, raped and murders her and police have no idea that Ashley is being killed by him until he mention that he accidently kills someone.
It is also being mentioned that this Facebook networking site allows strangers or not, either men or women, to download other user’s photo for their private viewing without getting permission from the person to keep it. However, to blame men only for doing that immoral activity alone is unfair as, sometimes, there are gorgeous and beautiful women outside there who willingly upload their photos to be views by the society.
Another point is that, Facebook is a “should not to have” when people start to tag photos which maybe controversial and not to be uploaded to be viewed by others. This tagging of photos is good when a person want to share with their friends the sweet and happy moments that they have been through but turns bad when it cause embarrassment to other person.
For example, there is one case related to this point which is a British woman, kill herself when her nude photos being upload and her ex boyfriend have been accused for tagging the photos in the Facebook. The victim, Emma Jones, a teacher at one of the international school in Abu Dhabi thought by officers to have drink poisonous cleaning fluid which has take her life. It is being reported that one of her colleagues have seen that photos and as the relationship between the two of them is not going well, she afraid that he will report it to the authority. After all, the authority does not belief that her boyfriend, Mr. Brayley involves with this case and he also denied that he is the one who responsible tagging her nude photos.
Last but not least, people are advised not to have an account of any social networking site, in this discussion, Facebook, if they intend to use it as a place for self-condemn or to condemn others. Self- condemn here, according to the writer, can be understood when, for example, a woman who used to wear proper dress covering all her private body parts during her young days, but later, change her appearance to a more up to date fashion, and criticize her “old moment” photos. In condemning others, the people used Facebook as a medium to critics anyone that they feels hatred with. It is a normal situation on today’s world and we can see that cases happen every day from different user with different regions in the world but with the same intention, to condemn others!
There is one case where Facebook being used to condemn a person, and this is being reported by Wynter, N. , one of the staff writer from Daily News,- news authorized by The Times Online- reported on 21st September 2009that the parents of Holly Grogan, victim of cyber bullying, claimed that Facebook has take her daughter’s life. The cause of her death is the dreadful injuries as she being hit by traffic before jump from the bridge which 30 feet high from land. According to her parents, Steve and Anita, her late 15 years old daughter being bullied by her school’s friend and “the girls used to gang up on her at school, bully her on Facebook and call up her names. They have transferred her to a new school but the bully still continued. It is also being reported in the article before this incident tough she have tried the best to overcome the pressure, her self confidence is getting lower day by day.
CONCLUSION
After all, these entire things should be controlled especially among Muslim society because it gives negative effect on Islam’s image. If these things continuously going on without any efforts taken by authorized individual it will reflects that Muslim society do not practice what Islam religion preaches and take all the teachings easily. All Muslims should understand that they supposedly not to share their problems overtly through social networking site, i.e., Facebook because it can trigger the situation from bad to worse. To avoid this, any problems that could not being settled by an individual can be settled by asking advices from trustee family members, close relatives and also by having discussion with third person party personally, such as counselors appointed from Syariah Court, Mufti, Muslim scholars and also can be done with Ustaz or Ustazah. Thus, starting from now, Muslim users should take heed of what has happened before and if they like to communicate and put forward any fact with other users on Facebook, they should have go through the message that they intend to convey through proper consideration and emotionally stable. From this, we, as Muslims, who is already mature enough to think what is good or bad, should put logical consideration on what we intend to communicate and post on Facebook. Without deeper thinking on the pros and cons, we unconsciously will put other’s life in danger.
As a matter of fact, Islam just not only wants their believers to lower their gaze between non-muhrim but also to control their eyes from viewing at things that is “haram” and sinful to them. From these arguments, the researchers do agree that all of these arguments do not confine people from having Facebook account because it is still a grey area yet to be confirmed by experts that Facebook is harmful to the users though. There is no a fair line to determine the main effects of Facebook as a medium of communication. It is safely to say that the use of Facebook brings good to users unless they choose to be the other way. All that is clear, it is morally wrong and contrary to law if the users used the networking site as a place to condemn people, government, races and religions because it may destruct the society as it concern on the violation of human rights.
Based upon the discussion on Facebook status from Islamic point of view, it is then depend on the society to make the decision either want to still keep on their account, create an account or to close the Facebook account. If they prefer to keep their account, the researchers have some tips to be followed by the users in managing their account and activity in Facebook so they can help to decrease and control the problems and issues regarding it. First and foremost, they use the account as a medium to communicate and discuss matters that gives benefit to Islam more than self-benefit. This can be done by promoting Islam through the sharing of videos, links or articles. This also could be done by spending and limit the amount of time in discussing personal issues on Facebook because the longer the time the possibility to be more emotional in saying things without deeper thinking is high. Moreover, the users are also advice to share less on their personal private information like phone number, home address, and account numbers or else and for female users to upload less any eye catchy photos. Another tip is that Muslim users are also being recommended not to involve in applications like games, fortune telling or any that against to Islam law.
The users also strictly advice from stop doing in Facebook like revealing
a) Birth date and place; can give hints to strangers on account bank numbers, passwords etc
b) Vacation plans; this invites criminals by saying that you are on vacation and nobody at home!
c) Home address; if you are a rich person, it will be easy for criminals to target their next victim!
d) Confessionals; misused of social site as a place for confessions of hatred, anger, or unsatisfied with employer, friends, universities, colleges can harm yourself later.
Thus, users must always bear in their mind that any information that they post on Facebook can be used as one of the sources for government and secret agencies to keep an eye and monitor their daily activities.
References:
Book(s)
1) Al Quran Karim
Magazine(s)
1) Karangkraf. (January 2010).Cahaya Rohani; Majalah Dara Com, 91st Edition, 68-69
2) Millennia Muslim. (September 2010), pg. 95
Online News
1) Sunday Time Online
2) Metro. Co. UK Online
3) Mail Online News
Online Article(s)
1) Zaharuddin Abd Rahman. (2010). Dosa-dosa & Facebook. Retrieved August 25th, 2010, from
2) Zaharuddin Abd Rahman. (2010). Facebook, Yahudi dan Status Hukum. Retrieved August
25th, 2010 from
3) Zaharuddin Abd Rahman. (2010). Promosi Maksiat & Buka Aib Sendiri. Retrieved August
25th, 2010 from
Zaharuddin Abdul Rahman; article entitled Dosa-Dosa & Facebook
Millenia Muslim magazine, September 2010, page 95
The Sunday Time online, 9th March 2010
The Sunday Time online, 9th March 2010
Metro. Co. Uk. ; 24th February 2010, British teacher killed herself after naked photos were posted in Facebook.