 It's strange how we assimilated social media into the very DNA of our relationships. When at one time we used to say, we used to question ourselves, how are we able to live our life of social media? And now we question ourselves, how will we be able to live without it? To some degree, this is very troubling to many as we realize some of the disadvantages of living a life on social media and yet we're too afraid to cut the cord. We've gotten so attached to the reality of social media. What's the solution? Well, to me, I think there's only one solution and that's dealing with it. Respecting viewers, brothers and sisters in Islam, As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Welcome to Deal With It with me or host Ahmed Ali. Now, this show is dedicated toward discussing and analyzing some of the most controversial topics that affect our lives on a daily basis, whether in a positive or in a negative way. Throughout the show, you will be able to comment and ask your questions for we are joined with a very special guest, Sayyed Hussain Qazweeni, who is here to talk about the dangers of social media and to answer whatever question you have. Sayyidina, As-salamu alaikum. How are you? Very well. You know, tonight is a very blessed night. We're in Bail Haraman. The only thing we can kick off our show is a quick ziyarat to Hussain A.S. and to his brother Abul Fadal Abbas. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. As-salamu alaikum. As-salamu alaikum. As-salamu alaikum. As-salamu alaikum. The viewers, once again, As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. I do welcome you back to our show. Deal with it. Now, this show, as I mentioned, is dedicated towards discussing and analyzing some of the most controversial topics out there that affect our lives, whether negatively or positive. This, inshallah, will be discussed with my dear guest, Sayyid Hussain Qazweeni. As-salamu alaikum. Sayyidina, once again. As-salamu alaikum. I congratulate you on the very auspicious occasion, which marks tonight the birth of Sayyidina A.S. and honestly, one of the most blessed occasions out there that anyone can celebrate. Now, what better way to celebrate it in his own shrine, in his own city? Perfect. I mean, put it perfectly right there. Now, tonight's topic is somewhat, it might upset some, it might make some people realize, come to epiphany, you know what, we're doing something wrong. Now, social media has gotten into our relationships, where it began to distance between family members, but inshallah, you could touch upon that. Now, in your opinion, what are the dangers of social media? I mean, there are, but specifically, what are they? I was going through a family album, album, a word that is forgotten. You remember those things where we would pick pictures in them, something so long forgotten. You know, we all used to have albums, but maybe not the generation of the 90s. I remember albums. You're from the 90s. I'm from the 90s. Great. We had albums, and pictures meant something. It's not that you could delete a picture and replace it and put filters on it. No, pictures had meanings. They were so beautiful. Anyhow, I was going through family pictures, family gatherings, family reunions, and I was going through these pictures, and the family looked so happy. And I think this is something that everyone could relate to, not just me, myself, and my family, but I want my dear viewers to go back to their family albums and look at pictures from nine years ago, eight years ago. Look how happy people are. All of them together in one picture. They're all together. Everyone's communicating. Everyone's engaged in talking. No one has their, you know, their phone on, going through Twitter or Facebook. No, everyone's engaged. Now, take a picture during family gatherings today. Everyone has their head and their phone. Or they're looking at the camera with the phone on their hand. Or they're looking at the camera, but it's a quick look. Like, you know, don't take too much of my time because there's something important going on. This is a problem. Social media, these phones, they've made life easier. We have to admit that. Maybe we'll talk about that. Life has become a lot easier. You could be lost in the middle of nowhere, but you could get to somewhere because of your phone. You have a navigation system. You have a GPS. You have prayer times. You have maps, you know, in the West. If you're in London or, you know, these metropolitan cities, if you want to take the train station, you have the timings exactly where you need to. Life has become a lot easier. But at the same time, family relations have changed. Family relations have not been the same. I want anyone to test, to think about this and test what I'm saying to their life. The gatherings that they have today, or not like the gatherings that they had 10 years ago. Previously, there were no distractions during family gatherings. Now, there's so much distractions. So many distractions. Everyone's on their phone. You know, you're not getting that quality family time because of social media. You know, I saw a quote on Twitter. And it really got me to think that some people are just addicted. Oh, yeah. Turn on the phone. Go on Twitter. Okay, nothing's there. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp. And then start this after five minutes. Start the cycle again. Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp. And so on and so forth. And after the 10th time, when you keep on checking and there's nothing new, you go to the weather app to check on the weather. What's the weather like tonight or tomorrow? That's the reality. You know, our phones have become like a bodily organ. You can't leave the house without it. You can't leave the house without it. I want my dear viewers starting from tomorrow. Sometimes when I come to work, I forget my phone at home and I'm like... I'm going to go back. Two or three kilometers away from home. You're going to come back home. I've got to go back home and it's a rush hour. Because we feel like we can't live with that. It's like a bodily organ. It's like leaving home without a shirt. It's a necessity. It's becoming a necessity. To some degree, I can understand. It's important. You need it for directions. You want to discover, you know, office hours. Pokemons, that's another story. You know, it's becoming a necessity. But everything should have limits. Everything should have limits. If you are the type that have to check your phone every five minutes, you can't have a 45 minute discussion with someone without going through your phone. And you know, it's disrespectful. When you're speaking to someone, all of a sudden they take out their phone and they go through Twitter. Or they go through WhatsApp and they try to navigate two conversations at the same time. One online and one offline. It's very disrespectful. It is. If you're the type that cannot go on for 45 minutes without having to check social media, then you have the social media syndrome. Let's call it the social media syndrome because it is a syndrome. It's a problem. The syndrome that we have to deal with. Almost 5 billion people across the world have it. Absolutely. You know, right now in Iraq, we have exam season. I know because I have an 8 year old child. He's in second grade. He's starting on Thursday. It's exam time. Now my child is still young. But the older ones nowadays, you find a 10 year old child that has an iPhone. Or a Samsung. 11, 12, they start early. You know, they all have their devices. If it's not a phone, it's an iPad. It's an iPad. And whatever you could put on your phone, you could put on your iPad. It's distracting. Instead of spending time on exams, reviewing for tests, students are busy all night. They're either on Snapchat, or on Instagram, or on Facebook, or on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube. Or on Netflix. And children, I have a 2 year old that won't go to sleep unless I give him the phone. Put it on YouTube when some song comes up. And he won't go to sleep until he watches some videos on YouTube. I mean, a 2 year old. And that's our fault. You know, from such a young age. That's the fault of parents. Because we want the child to quiet down. We want to keep them busy. So we keep them busy with these gadgets. Not thinking that, well, this child is 2 or 3. What's going to happen? Well, I can't spill the beans all at once. But yeah, I'm guilty as well. Yeah. If I want to go to sleep in the afternoon, and my child is going crazy at home, I'm going to give him an iPad. Keep him busy. We all do that. You know, a couple of weeks ago, or a couple of months ago, when there was a ban on iPads, on air flights to the U.K. and the U.S., a lot of parents went crazy. They said, how do you expect us to keep a child for 13 hours or 13 hours quiet? Without an iPad. Without an iPad. You know? It's a problem. It's not just distracted for children. It's even distracted for parents. Even for couples. Couples begin to neglect one another because they have a replacement. You can never get bored. So the small chat that couples have with each other every day, before going to bed, after coming back from work, all that has been replaced with social media. Husband comes back from work. He hasn't had time to go through social media at work. So he comes and he goes through his phone. Instead of coming and talking to his wife, the same thing goes for the wife. She comes back from work or from school or whatever it is. And instead of talking, they're on their social media. This didn't happen a couple years ago. It didn't. None of this happened. People were conversing. They would discuss their problems. They would discuss their issues. They had affection. You know, social media, I believe, I read an article, a report on social media recently that social media can cause depression. It can cause depression. If you're on your phone all the time, you don't speak to friends. You don't speak to parents. This happens. You don't speak to siblings. And you're always, your face is on the screen and you don't speak to anyone. And day in, day out, you're going to develop depression. We human beings were social beings. And social, not just on social media, not just behind the screen. But socially, we need to interact. We need to see faces in person. We used to even one time, this is on a weekly basis. Sometimes we would go out with friends and we would sit in a gathering. Everybody's talking and then there has to be that one or two people that just sit there and face their phone. And they ruin the whole gathering. Yeah, they ruin the whole gathering. Because, you know, we're talking and stuff and then they're just there. The odd person out. And, you know, we do, for 15 minutes, that's too much. Five minutes is probably the max, 10 minutes max. We talk and then everybody's back on their phones. Absolutely. And I think as people, you know, the programmers or, you know, the engineers that, you know, made this. They made it addictive. Very addictive. Because pictures, filters. You can see everybody across the world. News. There's so much that keeps you entertained. You know, you think that you don't need to speak to anyone. You don't even need to go out. That's wrong. Even parents. We can't just put the blame all on teenagers. Even parents. How many parents neglect their children because they're busy watching a video or reading an article or chatting or texting or tweeting. You know, we're neglecting our children. We're even neglecting our spirituality. The month of Rajab. The month of Rajab that just finished. There's so many supplications. Yes. So many da'as. Instead of spending the nights in worship and supplicating. You know, these small, beautiful da'as. I call them sandwich da'as. They're on the go. You know, we're in a fast... We're in a fast paced world. So, SubhanAllah, even the da'as of Rajab are on the go. They're very short. They're very short. They're meant to feed us a spiritual, quick, spiritual sandwich. Because it comes swiftly. It's so quick. The month of Rajab passed by. We didn't read these narrations only once or twice. But how many hours did we spend on Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat or WhatsApp or YouTube? You know, so it's not only affecting our school life or work life, our family life, our spiritual life. It's all being affected. If we allow it, of course. If we allow it. Some of the viewers might say, say you're exaggerating. My kids are doing good in school or if they're a teenager, they say I'm doing good in school. I go out. I do my prayers. You're exaggerating. Well, this might not apply to you, but it might apply to thousands of others. Thousands of others. Plus, one of the dangers of social media is that it's a playground for shaitan. It is. Playground for shaitan. SubhanAllah. Every year we make things easier for shaitan. Shaitan used to come through alcohol and music and gambling. No, this is considered nothing. Right? The Quran says that gambling and alcohol these things were tools of shaitan. Shaitan upgrades every year. When TV came out, TV became one of his tools. When satellite channels came out, it was one of his tools. Now it's social media. You want to see what's haram. You want to listen to haram. You want to see bad images. Gossip. Backbiting. Slandering. Fights on Facebook. Fights. Damaging people's reputation. Spreading rumors. It's all on social media. It's all on social media. Especially for the Bataleen. Those who have nothing else to do. They're unproductive. Social media is the best outlet for them. Shaitan comes. We shouldn't give him that tool. Shaitan can easily come. It's funny how you mentioned that. Social media and stuff. Now we've got a question. We're talking about the dangers of social media. We're going live on Facebook. That mean. Are we controversy ourselves? No we're not. Because I will get to that. Social media has its pros. And has its cons. We'll get to the pros. We'll get to the pros. I just want to mention that out there. We're not contradicting ourselves. Just like right now we're on a satellite channel. This is a religious satellite channel. But how many satellite channels are there that are promoting Shaitan? Shaitan is very active on other satellite channels. Social media is one of those things. That you could be a slave of Shaitan. Or you could be a slave of Rahman. Allah Azawajal. The choice is yours. And that's what I want my dear viewers to know. Just like anything else. Just like anything else. Social media could either damage you. Or it could take you to good places. As we'll talk about. InshaAllah. Another problem with social media. Is that. I want youth to pay attention to this. Is that just because you have social media. You have a lot of accounts. Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. You know there's social media outlets that I haven't even heard of. And I haven't even seen. Like what? Like Snapchat. I've never even used or seen. Me too. You have to move up saying it. I personally have a Twitter account of Facebook account. Where I share my lectures. In my classes. But I don't have a Snapchat account. There's so many outlets that I haven't even heard of. Anyhow. One thing that I'd like the youth to know is that. You don't have to share everything about yourself. On these outlets. There's some people. You know. Whatever they eat. Take a picture. It's on Instagram. Wherever they are. Take a selfie. It's on Snapchat. Whatever comes to their mind. I'm pretty hungry right now. I'm going to put that on Twitter. Relax. You don't have to share so much information. Am I right or am I wrong? You're right. There's some people they feel that whatever they feel. Any emotion that they have. Whatever they eat. Wherever they go. Whoever they meet. It has to go on social media and people have to know about that. You don't need to do that. You don't need to have people know so much about you. Respect your privacy. Respect your own privacy. A lot of people say we have friends and our friends want to know where we're at and what we're doing. We need to share this stuff. I'm hungry thing. I've seen it on Facebook and Twitter. It's annoying. But it could be damaging. A lot of people retweet it too. It could be damaging. It could be damaging. It's sad. But this is a reality. Nowadays. But if someone proposes to you. A guy proposes to a girl. The best way for her to get to know him is not in person. Because in person he'll put an act. He'll put filters. The best way is to go on his Facebook account. What if it's private? If it's private that's another story. But a lot of them they're not private. Here and at all. They go on their Facebook account. And they look at the pictures. Posts. Comments. And all they say is masha'Allah. And all of a sudden. This guy. This guy proposed. But this is a different person. Yeah. You don't have to reveal so much about yourself. You know. They say that if you want to know what a person thinks. Go on his Twitter account. If you want to see what a person eats. Go on Instagram. If you want to see where a person lives. And what furniture he has. Go on Snapchat. You know how many robberies. Occur because of Snapchat. People take pictures. On Snapchat. All of a sudden it's on Snapchat. People know that you have this furniture. You have gold. You have a big screen TV. You have. And they get robbed. Wow. Or wherever they go. They take a picture. People realize you're not at home. You're traveling. Your home's empty. They go and they rob you. These are all part of the dangers. I mean to a certain degree we can say that. That's one of the dangers of degree. Because it's so little that we hear that. I think one of the main dangers of degree. Is the fact that. When we do post something on Twitter. On Instagram. Some people are public. And really it ruins the image of the individual publishing it. Exactly. It can ruin your reputation. It can ruin your reputation. It can ruin your reputation. Exactly. It can ruin your reputation. Because what you do out in public. For example right now. We're in a holy place in Karbala. For example a young lady decided to take her hijab off right now. How many people are going to see her? 10, 20? 100. But when she exposes herself. Without a hijab. On Twitter or Facebook. There's hundreds. Of thousands. Of millions. Of people that will see her. You know. And I see the comments by our youth. Some comments are unnecessary. Sometimes they use foul language. Youth. Shia youth that attend Majales. And come to Islamic centers. They use foul language. Or they'll make inappropriate comments. For example they'll post a picture of a football player. They'll have that face with hearts. Hearts of eyes. These things are not appropriate. It's funny. Even in the Middle East now it's known as Zahaf. In English you want to translate that. It's going to be crawling. We don't have that in English. But it's the same way. And a lot of people do it in the name of Islam. They would go to Karbala and say. Mashallah you're very beautiful. I mean does the mashallah make the beautiful okay? It's nice to compliment someone. But to the extent you don't know the individual. If they might take it or not. Another problem that we have is the disagreements between the followers of Maraja. A lot of them have taken it to social media. And the wars that occur on social media. Between followers of different Maraja. The individuals. The wars. Trying to set traps for others. Defamation. Defaming others. Using pictures and filters. This person's a British spy. This person's an Israeli spy. That's all over social media. And we don't realize some of our youth unfortunately. They're naive. And you don't realize that you're doing this in front of everyone. That even others from other schools of thought are going to see this. And they're going to laugh at us. They're going to say look these are the Shi'a. Followers of this Marja are attacking. Followers of that Marja. And they laugh at us. Or maybe even non-Muslims. They look and say look. Look at what Muslims are doing. What Shi'as are doing. Between themselves. Sometimes followers of the same Marja. They fight between each other. It's funny to see that. It's all over social media. This is among the challenges. But we'll continue that after a short break if you want insha'Allah. So respected viewers do stay tuned. For insha'Allah we'll continue the topic about the dangers of social media. But that's after the short break. So do stay tuned. Let me just send this message real quick. Yes sorry. Yes we aren't here. My bad. My bad. Back to the discussion Sayedna. We do apologize for that. This is what we're talking about. This is the social media that we're talking. We're so addicted to it. Before the break we did talk about some of the dangers. But Sayedna now I want to talk about some of the pros of social media. Right now people think we raged a war against social media. We're anti-social media. We call it social media syndrome. A lot of people have that. So let's clear up some of the misconceptions that people might get from our discussion. Absolutely. So what are the pros of social media? Like I said in the first segment of this show. Don't tweet when we're talking about Twitter. Because we didn't encourage the dear viewers to send questions on Facebook. So I'm just checking Facebook. That's a good excuse for you to check your phone. So yeah go ahead Sayedna. Yes. Social media just like anything else. It could have positive uses. It could have negative uses. It's like owning a car. You could use your car to drive to bars and clubs. Or you could use your car to go to a mosque. The glass example. You could drink water in it. You could drink alcohol in it. Telephones in general. Before social media. You could use it to call parents when you're away. Or you could use it to speak to your girlfriend. A significant other. Not your but yeah. A significant other. TV. Yes. TV is a good example. TV has good channels and it has bad channels. TV is not the same TV. That's a good example of a good channel. Or there's bad channels. Social media is the same. I don't want to give an image that social media is completely evil. Or it's completely positive. No. It could be good. It could be bad. One of the positive things about social media is the amount that you could learn from. There's a vast amount of knowledge. For example, Twitter. On Twitter, there's so many accounts that you can subscribe to and follow. That give you general facts. Or if you're interested in something specifically. For example, among my interests are Islamic studies. Islamic studies. You know, I like to know what's happening. What's the latest in Islamic studies? What's what are the latest books, articles, publications? Are there any conferences going on in Islamic studies? What's the latest topics in Islamic studies? That's available. If you're interested in, you know, the world of animals, animal planet. There's so many, there's so many accounts to follow. You'll get the latest images, pictures, the latest information. Craziest information. It's real. There's facts. Even if you want news, the news. You know, as Donald Trump's one of his favorite expressions, it's fake news. And you know, to some degree, he's right. There's a lot of fake news out there. The majority of the news we get is fake. It's a lot of fake news or the news is distorted. Yeah, it is. But on social media, you could get accurate news. You know, someone, you hear about something that happened in Paris. But there's an exaggeration. You hear of 30 people dying. But there's someone from Paris that says, no, I was there at this incident. And there's only two people dead. You know, the last bombing, the last terrorist incident that occurred in Paris. Ironically, I was there. It was the day that I arrived to Paris. Yes, I had gone for a spiritual retreat with the Shi'a youth in France. And the day that I arrived to Paris, and it was my first time going to France, the day that I arrived several hours later, Abu Yusuf al-Baljiki decided to kill officers from France. You know, according to Iraqis, they say, Rizal al-Khadra. You know, when you go somewhere, good things happen, huh? So, you know, and I was being asked what's happening. And I was, you know, an eyewitness account. The streets were closed off and there was one person killed. My point is, even if you want accurate news, one of the best places to find accurate news is on social media. It's a world of information. A world of information for someone that's never been to school and has never studied. If you have social media accounts, whether on Facebook or Twitter, there's so much that you could learn. World of information, world of news, there's so much out there. So this is a major advantage of social media. There's so many documentaries, so many movies that you learn so much just by sitting for an hour or less, more, and you learn. So definitely it's an outlet for information and for knowledge. Let's just answer this question very quickly. Now, this person asks, Salam al-Hassani says, what's the problem with sharing my interests and opinions on social media? There's nothing wrong with that. Share your interests and share your opinions, but keep a limit. Yeah. Keep a limit. Tell us what you think of, you know, ISIS or how to eradicate ISIS or, you know, something important. But don't tell me that you're craving ice cream right now. The most funniest thing I've seen. No one wants to know that. The funniest thing I've seen on Facebook, this is, I think, a while ago. I don't know. People do it. They do do the duck face. But do you remember the times where they took pictures in the bathroom with the stall behind them? I mean, come on. Yeah. You really take a picture with the duck face, you know, sideways. That's ridiculous. Share your opinions. That's fine. Express yourself and share your opinions. There's nothing wrong with that. But be careful. Mm-hmm. Be careful of what you say and how you say it. You know, for some people, for some reason, some people, they're not so brave in person. So, in person, they might not be so straightforward, but they'll come take their phone and they'll be so evil. Yeah. They're so harsh. You know, like, for example, I'll give a lecture at a mosque. Someone will come and say, say, you know, you did a great job. I liked it. But, you know, there's something that I think you didn't emphasize so much on. Or maybe you shouldn't have said this. It wasn't appropriate. You should have said something, but they'll do it nicely. That same person, when he's on his phone and decides to email me about it, he'll be like, say it, you know, you're such a disappointment. I can't believe that you said, they become a lot harsher. Yeah. For some reason, people are a lot harsher on social media. And something that they can say so nicely, they say it in a such harsh way, just because there's no one to see them. You know, and that's why they say, you know, people have Facebook muscles. Exactly. Or Twitter muscles. In person, there's no way they'll say something that harsh. But all of a sudden, on social media, they feel like, you know, they could say whatever they want. A Terminator. They're a Terminator and they could get away with whatever. You know, Achlaq, the same way they apply to you offline, they should apply to you online. You know, just because you're on social media doesn't mean you have to drop Achlaq and good etiquette and being nice to people and, you know, saying harsh things hurt. Whether you say it to a person in person. Yeah. Or you send them an email. You know, something relevant. Or you comment on their Facebook post. Something relevant to that is sometimes even messages where good intentions are, you know, that you're trying to get across. Sometimes they might misunderstand you if you're actually criticizing them or you're just telling them, you know, on good grounds. They don't know. Absolutely. Which side you're on. Absolutely. That's why I say be careful. You don't have to tweet every 20 minutes. You don't have to make a post every 15 minutes. Be careful. Posts, it's a responsibility. Tweets are a responsibility. Think ahead. Will this post be used against me or this tweet be used against me or my family or my spouse or my relatives, you know, two years down the line. Five years down the line. Ten years down the line. You know, Donald Trump, there's tweets that are coming out from 2013, 2012, where he was against striking Syria. Now they're coming out all of a sudden. People are saying, see, in 2012 or 2013, you were against striking Syria. You were against so-and-so or you were pro-so-and-so, but you changed. They're using his tweets against him. Wow. They're using his posts against him. Wow. So you have to think ahead. You know, do I really want to say this? It's fine to share an opinion, but are you sure it's not going to damage you? It's not going to hurt you? It's not going to hurt others. Sometimes you only hurt yourself. Okay. You want to hurt yourself, be my guest. Sometimes you hurt an entire school of thought. You hurt an entire faction or an entire mosque, an entire group of followers of a certain merger. You know, you have to be very careful. Going back to the benefits of social media. Now, before we go back and ask the question, because we need to clarify something. Now, Mohammad Radha, he asks, what is the solution? How can we live in this world, in this digital world, without social networks? Now, from what I've got, just to minimize everything and take advantage of the time, we don't mean to live a life without social media. Without social media. No. Don't misunderstand. Yeah. And I wanted to say this at the end. Can we save this till the end? Go ahead. Perfect. As how do we balance? Yes. How do we balance? Okay. So among the benefits of social media is, you know, the opportunity to spread awareness. The opportunity to spread awareness. You could be a normal person. You're not a scholar. You haven't graduated from Hausa. You haven't graduated from university. But if you can make good posts and good tweets, you could spread a major message about Islam. Yes. About the school of Tahrir al-Bayt. You know, you could improve the image of Islam. The image that, the image of Islam that is today in the minds of a lot of people. You know, the image of Islam is ISIS in the minds of a lot. Yeah. And France, you know, when I went to France, there's hatred for Muslims. Muslims to them are, they're evil. They're backward. Some of them are criminals. They cut people's heads off. And they're facing elections. And these elections that are coming up soon in about a week in France, they're a breaking point in the history of France because they can take a major step towards anti-Islam and anti-Muslims. We can enhance the image of Islam and Muslims through social media. That's right. By the things that you say, by the things that you post, you give a good image, be nice to people. Show them the bright side of Islam in Ahl al-Bayt. Ahl al-Bayt, I believe Imam Raza, he says, You could simply post sayings of Ahl al-Bayt. You have to, you know, you have to choose wisely which sayings are appropriate for social media, how to translate them, because some narrations, if they're mistranslated, if they're mistranslated, they could do more damage than benefit. They could do more harm than benefit. So, if they're mistranslated, if they're mistranslated, they could do more damage than benefit. They could do more harm than benefit. Choose the narrations of Ahl al-Bayt, choose verses from the Quran and post them on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on, you know, let's spread the message of Ahl al-Bayt. We could do so much. Even when it comes to political events, what's happening in Iraq, a lot of people don't know. You know, when a bomb goes off in Paris, you get a huge hashtag, pray for Paris. There are so many people, they're tweeting and it's trending. But let a bomb occur in Karada and Baghdad. No one cares. Well, triple the amount of people die here, then over there. And no one cares. No one cares. We could create awareness on social media, create a trend. You know, I have some friends in the UK, they created a trend. There were bombings in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, where Shi'a were being killed. They created a trend on Twitter, on Shi'a genocide. And that trend, there was an entire article in the New York Times about that trend on Twitter. And I encourage them, that start a trend. You have to know, you know, how to do it. You have to know how social media works. How to make it attractive. How to make your tweet attractive. How to get retweets. You could serve Islam and Ahl al-Bayt and your cause through social media, it attracts attention. You'll have your name in the New York Times or the Washington Post just by starting a trend on Twitter. Now, in your opinion, which social media network is best? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You haven't used Snapchat. I encourage you to download Snapchat. This is not, we're not getting paid by Snapchat, but it's a nice app. I don't know. You're asking the wrong person because, you know, I'm a bit old school and, you know, Facebook was one of the earliest outlets of social media. And so was, Twitter came, I first had a Facebook account and then Twitter, and that's it. And then I stopped. I'm the wrong person to ask. Maybe there's better. According to you, I'm asking you, in your opinion. I think there's different messages. What do you use? I think if you just want to express your thoughts on 140 characters and you're good at that. Twitter. You can condense your thoughts on 140 characters. Go for Twitter. And I think Twitter is a good way of spreading your word quickly. The word gets out quick on Twitter. There's a lot of intellectuals there. There's a lot of journalists, academics, politicians. You know, there's so many people out there on Twitter and you can get your message across quickly. So it depends. Maybe a picture will spread on Instagram faster than it would on Twitter. This is really not my field. I'm not an expert on this. I just want to see which one you use the most. So I'm guessing Twitter. Twitter and Facebook. Both. Both. Yeah. I would say maybe for images. Instagram? No. No? I don't use Instagram. No. For images, if I take a picture of a shrine, I would post it on Facebook. But if I have something to say, I would post it on Twitter. Generally speaking, but it could. So you don't have Instagram? No, I don't. Okay. Good. Is that one of the questions? No, no. I just want to see which one you like the most. So we can get to know you more. Sure. There's another question by Sayed Ibrahim. He says, what's the problem with sharing my interests and opinion on social media? The same question. There's another question which says, you're criticizing social media so much. And yet you've mentioned not a lot of pros as much as cons. Now is that why? Is it because they're more cons than pros? Should we leave social media? No. Or should we stay in connected with it? No. Keep a balance. I say keep a balance. Those that have social media, you don't need to leave social media. That's ridiculous. I don't think they won't. No, there's no need. It's an addiction, just like someone's addicted to it. Right. But I say if you have social media, make use of it. Follow accounts that you learn from. Don't follow people that will waste your time. You don't need to follow all of your friends or comment on their posts on who won today, which was at Manchester United or Liverpool or something like that. That's nice. This is nice. I don't mean to offend football fans, but I'm saying there's things that will waste your time. I see some youth that will spend literally hours just commenting on a game. Who scored? Who advanced? This is something nice. But it kills your time. It kills your time. I have time to kill. No, you don't have time to kill. You don't have time to kill. Because every minute that passes by, that moment will never come back again. And we're one step closer to our death. We'll regret this time that is being wasted. So what I'm saying is do not deactivate your accounts. Keep your accounts, but make good use of them. Number one for educational purposes. Learn. Yes. Go out there. There's lectures out there. There's quotes. There's a hadith. There's motivational quotes. Yes. Sometimes you'll read one tweet and it can change your entire day. Yes. It'll change your perspective. I get this a lot. Say this tweet of yours, it changed my day. It changed my perspective on certain things. So follow up with things that are beneficial. Now follow up with things that will kill your time and waste your time. This is one. To make use of your account. Spread Islam. Spread awareness on Islam, on Muslims, on our political issues. Our causes, we can push those causes on social media. I'm not saying leave. Do not leave. That's a mistake. In fact, we need more social media accounts. Look at ISIS. ISIS, where did it get its most recruits? Social media. Social media. Through social media. ISIS. I remember reading in the New York Times that on a single basis, on a daily basis. This was before. I don't know about now. This was about two years ago. That on a daily basis, ISIS creates thousands. I don't remember the exact number. Thousands of accounts on Twitter. That's how they recruit people through social media. Why don't we recruit people to Islam? Not in a military sort of way. Don't misunderstand me. Recruit them in a good way to our faith. Let's preach our faith and our school of thought. And the real Islam, not the Islam of ISIS. Not the cutting heads and chopping heads off and enslaving that barbaric image of Islam. Let's show them the real image of Islam through social media. We can do that. We can do that. So yes, when I attack social media, I'm attacking the cons. The dangerous side of social media. Not the good side of social media where you could learn. You could spread the message of Islam. You could meet people from all across the globe where you never thought of meeting them. You could meet them on social media and interact and work for the cause of Islam on social media. Now, in conclusion, just for a minute, I know we have a minute or two. What do you advise the youth to use? I know you just mentioned quite a few. It goes on with the pros of social media. But just as a conclusion, what do you advise the youth to take advantage of social media? I would say have specific hours for social media usage. Social media usage doesn't have to start from 6 in the morning till 12 midnight. No, have specific hours. For example, from morning till afternoon, no social media. From morning till afternoon. For example, it's for work. It's for study. It's for a specific purpose. It's very realistic. I am being realistic. You could check social media very quickly. Especially if it's something like WhatsApp where it's work related. It's work related, that's another issue. But if it's for entertainment purposes, if it's leisure, we have to make a difference. Between that is what is for work and what is for leisure. If it's for leisure, keep it at night. Keep it in the afternoon when you come back home from school from work. One hour, two hours, maximum. Do not kill your entire day on social media. And once you're on social media, try to be productive. Use it for Islam, for Muslims, for spreading the cause of Ahlul Baik. Keep a balance. That's a message that I want my dear brothers and sisters to take home. Keep a balance. Don't make social media. Social media is there for us. We're not for social media. It should not take control of us. We should take control of it. Hopefully we can get the proper message from what we talked about today. And thank you very much for joining us. Hopefully we can continue serving Ahlul Baik through social media. InshaAllah. And continue in that way. InshaAllah. Thank you very much once again. Respected viewers, let's keep one thing in mind. Is that we are not bashing social media at all. We're just saying what the dangers of social media is. And the pros and the cons of that. Thank you very much for tuning in. Wa Asalaamu Alaikum. Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh Sayyidina Kusafi. InshaAllah. Since we're just talking about social media. Why not? Ya Allah, Bismillah. Is this going on Snapchat? This is going on Snapchat.