My View.. Generalizing Our Choices

Essam Al-Baqshi * One of the most beautiful features offered by social media applications is the ability to create groups with diverse specializations, interests, and spectrums, bringing together people with varied tastes and backgrounds. In these groups, many clips, excerpts, and taste-based selections are shared. A crucial question frequently arises: Do I have the right to impose my tastes, choices, and preferences on the group to which I belong? Does this constitute a form of imposition on other members? Conversely, what guidelines should govern such sharing? Where lies the dividing line between participation and flooding, and between enriching the group and diluting its identity? When some members turn the group into an open space, posting anything they come across without any regard for the group’s specialization or orientation, do its administrators have the right to exclude them? Or is this a form of authoritarianism? In my humble opinion, the problem does not lie in differing tastes, but in their generalization. Not everything that pleases me must please others, and not everything I deem appropriate is suitable for every gathering. Every place has its own discourse, and every group has its own identity. Respecting this identity is not a restriction on freedom, but rather an acknowledgment of others’ time and interests. Public spaces have their etiquette, just as real-life gatherings have their own norms. Those who fail to grasp this truth may mistakenly believe that freedom means the absence of boundaries, whereas in reality, it begins with respecting the boundaries of others. The culture of participation is no less important than the culture of selection, and both require awareness before they require pressing the “send” button. * Saudi writer