Rumormongering

While freedom of speech is a guaranteed right in every country that prides itself as a democracy, the old expression “One’s freedom ends when he or she infringes on another person’s rights” rings true in the case of this teenager who cried wolf and claimed that Abu Sayyaf bandits boarded a Ceres bus at one of the barangays in Carcar City, southern Cebu.

The girl, a student in an Argao town school, had no way of verifying whether her information was true or not yet prefaced her rumor with the words “di ni binuang (this is not a joke)” to create the impression that what she reported on her account was true.

According to police, she could be held liable for rumormongering and for violating the Cybercrime Prevention Act, but we’ll have to wait and see if the police can make good and build on their case against the girl, who had long since deleted that alarmist post in her Facebook account and perhaps may either be gloating at the ruckus she created or is quaking in her boots on the very real prospect of facing charges for a crime she thought she could get away with.

It was similar to the bomb jokes made in Cebu City a few months back at the height of public fears of bombings to be done by the Abu Sayyaf bandits who succeeded in killing several people in a night market explosion in Davao City.

One of these bomb jokers was a student who claimed to have a bomb while inside a mall in Cebu City. We could only hazard a guess as to what happened to that student, but we won’t be surprised if he got away with a slap on the wrist and a stern reminder never to do it again.

Perhaps a lot of people would question the wisdom of imposing sanctions on this girl, who remains unidentified despite her serious offense because of being underaged. But hiding behind a minor’s anonymity had given cause for lawmakers to demand the lowering of the age of accountability for minors so they would be held liable and thus be tried as an adult to discourage others from using them to commit crimes like running drugs.

Jail time may be out of the question, but some sanctions should be imposed on the girl to serve as a warning to others who are stupid or foolish enough to continue spreading lies through social media. It would take days or months to ask local representatives of Facebook to suspend an offender’s account pending investigation on the user.

Yet there are ways to stop these rumormongers from spreading their lies from the get-go. One could report to the authorities who would then report it to Facebook so the social media network can take it down or simply label it as spam or containing offensive, unverified information.

At a time when foreign countries, like the US, issue travel advisories against the country particularly in Cebu, these idiotic, dangerous posts on social media should be taken down and its perpetrators properly sanctioned immediately.