I recently watched a movie on Netflix called Lovehard. This movie explores a concept called “Catfishing”. By definition, it is an activity where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim. The practice may be used for financial gain, to compromise a victim in some way, as a way to intentionally upset a victim, or for wish fulfillment.

This movie made me think or rethink my definition of morality (i believe in free will wherein every individual has a right to believe right and wrong from their own perspective, hence i am limiting it to “my definition”). In today’s social media age, a lot of people define their sucess around how they are viewed or accepted on social media. They sometimes depict events or exaggerate them to get liked or acceptance on social media. While watching the film, my mind veered in to the definition of catfishing. If potraying ourselves as someone we are not a cringeworthy offense then why should “most” of the people posting on social media about their lives and themselves be castigated too?

A discussion with my friend over food made me think. What is morally right and wrong in the age of social media?If it is a spectrum, is some level conning or deception OK , but not too much? if some conning is OK how much is too much?Where do i draw the lines in my mind on what is acceptable?We know for a fact that most people exaggerate their lives on social media to get accepted or liked. Isnt that a form of Catfishing too?

Since I had to spend a portion of my adulthood without the influence of the internet, i am fascinated with what the www has done to the humankind, its ability to democratize access to information and trigger the rise of social media. I am able to visualize the “before” “after” phenomenon.
These new jargons (or shall we call them verbs) do catch my attention.

Visualize two scenarios: One positive where the AI or an algorithm is able to identify catfishing in the future and weed them out or another, disturbing scenario (dystopian?) where such things are normalized and left to our judgement to weed out bad from the good. Which scenario is more likely?