PHILOSOPHY OF DISSEMINATING INFORMATION

By Alamu Azeez (Mr. Nigeria)

As a growing communication expert and PR personnel, I found myself getting conscious of the various menace and hurdles caused by perpetual dissemination of unauthenticated information by many social media users. Most of whom share this information with the subconscious mind of helping the readers not knowing they're worsening the security situation of the country most especially in the face of increase cybercrime and artificial intelligence without adequate security record or check.

Many Nigerians today are fond of sharing information that depicts bad image of the country rather than the one that portrays the country in good/positive image. This is because many are unaware of the country's Citizen's Diplomacy policy initiated by the government to redeem the image of the country home and abroad. You can imagine how a Nigeria citizen by birth and resident in Nigeria would share *"Nigeria is the home to criminals of all kinds in the world"* without even checking the validity of that information nor the source.

It's no news that the level of insecurity in the country is extremely outrageous. However, one would wonder why Nigerians themselves continue to put each others in danger of threats of life through dissemination of wrong/fraudulent information without check on the source nor rational/logical thinking on its composition before dissemination.

I've seen wrong information that depicts Job opportunities, Scholarship opportunities or Government grant and it's frequently being shared on social media today frequently. The links do carry https://bit.ly or cutt.ly then with SUPPORT-FUND or SCHOLARSHIP-FUND as the domain. Many youths fall victims of these links believing it's real and true not knowing it's very fraudulent and fake and can endanger lives.

Also, information depicting an organization or institution in search of employees and thus requesting applicants to send their details to a mail depicting personal names and not the organisation mail. Readers should desist from clicking any links or sending their personal data to any personalized mail to avoid worsening the security situation of the country or endangering their own lives. Reports have had it that some people were tamed to death via links/mails shared to them via social media. If you're unable to authenticate the validity of a link, don't fill your information on such page.

On accidents reportage, people just take any information they see on social media without confirming its source. In the early hours of Sunday, 20th of February, 2022, a commercial bus which left a park at Gere-Alimi of Ilorin left for Lagos and got involved in a fire accident along Airport Road of Ilorin Metropolis. Several reports via social media reported otherwise of the incidence. How logical can one say *"21 people died from a 18 passengers bus?"* These and more are questions that should always be asked whenever you need to share any information.

Yes! It's good to live a life for others. However, don't endanger people's live through unverified, unconfirmed, unauthenticated and diluted information. It's not compulsory that you share information, if you must share, please VERIFY.

_ALAMU Azeez is a research enthusiast, political analyst, educational consultant and a finalist of the Department of Political Science, University of Ilorin. He can be reached via ilyasazeezalamu@gmail.com._

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