Rome: These days, WhatsApp messages from my 75-year-old nun-friend wakes me up. What a surprising development. She sends me good morning messages, good night messages, prayers, and even some good jokes.

It is interesting to see the increasing number of religious men and women using the apps. The users range from seniors as old in their 80s to the youngest of religious who are permitted to use mobile phones. I still remember one of the disciplinary issues reported to me, when a young religious who was not permitted to use mobile phones, borrowed one from his lay classmate and hid it under his bed. When his local superior asked him for an explanation, his response was that it was for ministry purposes.

Yes, indeed. Most religious use the apps for exchanging prayers, hymns, speeches, participating in Mass and stories. Forwards, good morning –good night messages and downright hatred fill the message boxes. Coronavirus pandemic has made it easier for the medium to grow. Even participation in Eucharist is possible only through internet and smart phone is the necessary tool.

Of course, the religious are probably late comers into these media. Statistics reveal that 1.5 billion users in 180 countries make WhatsApp the most-popular messaging app in the world – 0.2 billion more than stablemate Facebook Messenger.

“With more than 340 million users, India is Facebook’s biggest market. In April 2020 Facebook announced it was investing US$5.7bn (£4.6bn) in cut-price Indian mobile internet company Reliance Jio, owned by the country’s richest person Mukesh Ambani. This would give Facebook a major foothold in India, where its WhatsApp chat service has 400m users and is about to launch a payments service.”

Beware of Facebook

Facebook owns all the four most downloaded apps of the decade, including WhatsApp, according to app tracker App Annie. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversees all of them. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Facebook ignored its hate speech policy and allowed anti-Muslim posts on its platform to avoid ruining the social media company’s relationship with India’s governing party.

The Congress party, other opposition parties and the Non-Governmental agencies have strongly condemned Facebook for interfering with electoral democracy in India, favoring the ruling party. Interestingly, Roger McNamee recently said, ‘Facebook is a threat to whatever remains of democracy in the US.’

So there it is, your WhatsApp and Facebook are dangerous tools. How you use them is critical to the future of the nation and of course your future.

Some suggestions for responsible use

Given the easy availability and reach of these apps, it will not be practical to avoid them. However, we can be more responsible and creative in using them.

First and foremost, the user should be aware you are using an instrument, which is being used against the minorities of the country/world and is a powerful tool in the majoritarian agenda of the country. Facebook and WhatsApp are all becoming instruments of injustice. Forwarding whatever is received is no more a wise action.

Second, use this app for spreading the message of love, in a culture where hatred is widely spread and promoted. Some of the recent riots against the minorities were shrewdly supported by these apps. Thus from just passing on religious messages move on to interreligious harmony messages.

Share stories of hope, suffering and resilience. Remaining preoccupied with churchy issues only, in our use of these apps, will be an escapism from our mission of sharing good news to the whole world. We can and must use these apps as tools of building friendships across religions, castes, class and gender. May be we can build a new humanism using these apps.

Third, use this tool for educating ourselves for critical consciousness. Our country is going through a great churning. Thousands of individuals and Non-Governmental organizations are coming together these days to protect our identity as a democratic, secular, socialist and just nation. We have to realize injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere and we cannot be, as believers in God, mute about any of them.

Remember in critical times, neutrality is not an option. Neutrality is sin. For instance, when you know that hundreds of Muslims are attacked and there are on an average two attacks on Christians every day in India, shouldn’t we be at least be talking about them?

Covid times have brought huge suffering to the poor and marginalized. Millions are falling into hunger, have lost their employment and have no medical aid. But observe, the media is busy talking of suicides of film stars, nationalism and global leadership.

The poor are invisible. Therefore, their needs will become invisible too. Remember what Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, told Pope Francis as he was just elected: ‘Don’t forget about the poor’. This applies to each one of us. The world is forgetting the poor, the migrants, the displaced, the victims of war and violence. Can we talk about them? Help them.

Next time when you are on Facebook or WhatsApp, please remember you are holding a sharp knife. Would you use it as a surgeon’s knife or a rioter’s sword? You may use your apps to serve the poor or pander to the wild imaginations of the pampered. The choice is yours.