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How a Single Post Destroyed My Reputation

Before hitting post, consider the impact your words and shared images might have on someone’s life
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Created by Ian forbes

Published on Jan 28, 2025
a teen boy looking at his phone
Valeria Blanc via Canva

Suppose you are in the 90’s and in the café with your friends. No internet. You forgot your notes in the class and you went to grab those. In the hallway you see something unexpected, the nerdiest student in the school is talking to the school crush (the most beautiful girl on campus), blushing, and having strong eye contact with her. Besides feeling slightly jealous and sorry for yourself, your immediate impulse would be to share what you saw. You would rush at the top of your speed just to inform your friends of the event, maybe with a little exaggeration. Then this news would fly across the campus like the wind. While gossip used to just travel by word of mouth, today’s gossip spreads even faster through social media, often with devastating effects. People frequently post sensational content impulsively, chasing the momentary thrill of attention and potential virality without pausing to consider the long-lasting personal and emotional fallout their posts might cause.

The reason why I am writing this article is that last year I found myself in an ambiguous event that was posted on social media. Before I tell my story it is important to know that I have always been the quietest and shyest student in class. I would often either read a book or play squash in my free time as, I did not have anyone to hang around with. 

So this incident happened four months ago. I was reading a book in the café when a girl approached me. At first, I felt nervous as I was not used to talking to anyone let alone a girl I didn't know. She asked me about the book I was reading. I stuttered and said “Ba…Bastard of Istanbul”. She said “Sorry, I could not hear you” and pushed her hair behind her ear. I saw that she had a hearing aid. I repeated, no more loudly, “Bastard of Istanbul.” She replied “Please my hearing aid is low on battery.” So this time I shouted “BASTARD OF ISTANBUL.” She replied “Oh! Nice book.” I felt relieved, and excused myself. 

Later that night my cousin messaged me "What have you done." I sat up and replied, "What?". He sent me a classmate’s post which showed me gesturing with my hand and shouting at the girl earlier at the café who was sliding her hair back and looking down, giving a victimized look. The post was captioned “Bastard himself, calling others names and shouting in the middle of a crowd”. The comment section was filled with refrains such as ‘justice for the girl’. Comments and reactions on this post were off the charts. I was in complete agony the whole night. 

The next day I went to school and I heard people gossiping about me and looked at me with anger in their eyes. Fast-forwarding to when the girl and I were called to the principal’s office. He interrogated us separately and I was claimed innocent and the event was declared a misunderstanding. In a nutshell, my previous four months have not been so normal. People still have this toxic impression of me as one who considers women to be inferior. 

In my point of view, social media is saturated with cheerful news and funny moments, but what gets posted often lacks the full context hence it is used as a platform for gossip. Here a single incident is completely warped, creating a false narrative and a bad impression of the subject. The only real way to combat this issue is to not believe everything we see on social media. We should never stick to a single source and try to gather as much information about news stories as we can.

I am putting this question out to everyone reading this - is it right to post everything we see on social media?

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