Let Cynthia Sleep!!!

Violence and the Internet

Let’s divest technology off Cynthia and allow the pretty girl a decent sleep. I hate this image Cynthia is fast gaining in the news. I hate it with my entirety. Technology is a platform not dominant in itself but dependent on the control of its users. The outright blame it is sharing in the gruesome murder of Cynthia is starkly unbecoming. In all these sheer blames being poured down on Technology, we soon neglect the issue worth dealing with. For the necessary umpteenth time, technology did not kill Cynthia, men of dark intentions did. Panning more attention on these people is most important. That will allow us an ample rein on how to deal with future situations of this type. Let me tell you something; Facebook is not the cause, we are.

I have had my fair share of the online experience to run commentary on it. I am also one of the online enthusiasts as my means will allow me. It is exactly a decade since I know the web and I have never for once left it. We were once in a relationship and those times were characterised with examining our differences. At a time it was a courtship, this was when I was slowly being driven by it. Now, I and the web are one, let’s just call ourselves life partners. There is virtually nothing I cannot deploy it into – and as I said earlier on – as my means would allow me, internet is still money draining in this part of the globe. I have had my rough edges with the use of the Internet. With the time and precious opportunities lost on binging on it, I have since grown to maximising it into an everyday helping tool.

The web is an interactive platform run on the linkage of individual users. Isn’t that what Web 2.0, the sought-after platform of the web, fosters?  So how does the internet come to execute a thing by its self? Internet is an extension of the real, we should always know that. Whatsoever comes on it is only mainstreamed from our interactive physicality. The Internet only promotes and sustains, it never can boast of anything of its exclusive origin.

In gaining closure on the death of Cynthia, the traditional media has not been helping. With their misleading headlines and messy conclusions, you soon begin to believe they bear sinister grudges against the internet. The internet has outsmarted them. Sure. Now, it seems the unfortunate death of Cynthia is offering them a cheap gauntlet against it. Even when it has become the general belief that Cynthia’s death is occasioned with the use of the new media, I won’t be coaxed into believing such. We lose it on many fronts when we misplace the basics that matter for lazy conclusions. For clarity, just like anything that can be cashed on, the new media only aided the nefariousness of this gang. Before the new media came, we have been having cases of this colour. So why hype this out of proportion now?  Let’s not be hoodwinked out of simple reasons. The new media may have been a tool, the evil is independent of it. And as such should be dealt with separately.

I can closely observe we still grapple to understand this new media. Our immediate older generation probably ever wouldn’t. When anything amoral comes on it, we scream crimson murder, solely criticising it. That is like removing the user from the tool. When a knife runs foul, does one blame the knife? When a stone is thrown, should the stone be broken and the thrower absolved? It is a good thing this gang has been apprehended, let’s question them for the reason for their deed and not the reason for their tool.

Recently, shortly after this incident, her father asked her if she owns a facebook account. She affirmed. She was given a stern look and silently reprimanded. When her dad gave her the newspaper reporting Cynthia’s death, she understood the situation better. For Seun, for my friend, facebook has become the next thing to evil in her home. She is now faced with the post-trauma of Cynthia’s death.

“This sort of crime is only possible because of the unique connectability, anonymity and intimacy-at-a-distance which the internet affords.” -  David Reid. I can’t agree less. Our security details should take a clue from this. To start with, do we even have cybercrime experts? That’s so bad if we don’t. Internet is now with us. There will be more evils and its advantages will continue to leap too.

This occurrence wouldn’t be the last. Cynthia is dead, I commiserate with the bereaved. She is upwardly mobile, her death shouldn’t be tied to that. Let her sleep, spare her the noise.

Let Cynthia Osokogu sleep!

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·         Additional insights provided by Olagunju Seun.