By Mink Jawandor
The world is a mere global village now. Social media imagery is playing a huge role in bringing the world together, which is a beautiful phenomenon to witness. The primary beneficiaries are Mack Zuckerberg and others due to their brilliant technologically innovative contributions. Through technology comes social media and social media have created unconventional pathways for easy human connections that directly influence migration.
The vivid beauty of social media attracts young people from poor countries positively. Social media has transformed communication by allowing immediate, worldwide communication connecting people to practical activities across different geographical divides.
We all know the history of migration but the level at which we are witnessing since social media emerged and improved has massively increased migration stress around the world that’s made people from poor and underdeveloped nations want to migrate to rich nations due to the lifestyle and standard of living they see each day on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, X, Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok and more. Which is now causing untimely death and destruction to young people, border crises, and putting stress on organizations like the International Organization for Migration, UNDP, Missing Migration Project, and local governments in places like France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the USA that are directly affected with migration border distress.
Young people literally see and hear from their close friends that they grew up together, a family member, or a neighbor, went through these rough territories and made it to the USA or Europe and their lives physically transform from looking unhealthy to being healthy, beautiful and happy through live social media pictures or live video chat after they reach Europe or America. This can motivate any ambitious young person to join this extremely deadly migration trend to Europe, America, and other developed nations worldwide in search of a better life.
In recent years, young individuals and families have been making intense efforts to migrate to developed nations in search of better opportunities. Since 2014 there has been a massive exodus of risky migration trends in the Mediterranean Sea from all African countries. It has been a constant stream of movement toward Europe through the Mediterranean Sea that has caused 30,000 untimely deaths for young Africans attempting to travel to European nations in search for greener pastures and these deaths have been publicly broadcast or televised on news networks which have still not instilled fear on other young Africans but increasing the influx of migrants through routes like the central Mediterranean route that connects Libya to Italy, the eastern Mediterranean route that connects Turkey to Greece, and the western Mediterranean route that connects Morocco to Spain, these routes are serving as the death pathways to European nations for African youths mostly from harsh environmental conditions, lack of adequate shelter, food, water, hazardous transportation, random violence, sickness and lack of access to adequate healthcare during their journey and some death are unknown, but drowning in the Mediterranean sea causes the highest death rate among all, because migrant smugglers mostly uses a rubber rafts boat to cross the sea which has caused thousands of death as the boats will capsized before reach the shores of Europe and all these young passengers on the boat will drown in the open sea. This route looks like the easiest and the shortest to reach Europe but has appeared to be the riskiest and most deadly route. These young migrants know that their lives are in danger, but they are willing to take the risk and hope for the best. Migrant smugglers are taking advantage of these desperate and poor young people who see that there is an opportunity on the other side through the pictures and Images of social media sites.
In North America when it comes to immigration trends or the influx of immigrants to the US. The US government tends to point at immigration policies only, hoping migration policies will alter these deaths and crises at the borders. 10,000 migrant deaths have been recorded crossing the border from 2014-2024 and counting.
US policy officials are failing to realize that technology has changed the world and will continue to influence the world in many ways and immigration is a prime issue now, that technology will continue to bring problems to, through social media postings. Young people in big cities with access to technology will continue to look at Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc., and be ready to use it to motivate themselves to migrate to the US or Europe.
No government policy can change these migration trends, because Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc., will no longer go away. People from poor countries will constantly use these beautiful images from social media postings to motivate themselves to migrate to developed nations. Even legal immigration nowadays uses social media in their vetting process for visa applicants. U.S. immigration authorities review social media posts and activities to assess applicants’ character for potential security concerns. Social media aids support for policies or ideologies that go against U.S. principles while migrant smugglers and migrants use these social media sites to coordinate and facilitate communication for their deadly journeys to developed nations as well.
So, individuals like Mark Zuckerberg, one of the top beneficiaries of these social media sites, must account for these deaths on the Mediterranean Seas from Africa and South America. These people should be blamed and praised for these circumstances of today’s existence. It is the gift and the curse of the brilliance of human existence in the area of human development and technology they have pioneered. So therefore, they should be using their profits to support nonprofit organizations in creating ways to stop or slow down the influx, by supporting border security, paying UN workers, and supporting local cities in border towns, to financially cushion the blow of migration stress social media is now causing to the world.
The continuous death through migration is today’s major event faced by our civilizations influenced by these social media technologies, and communities that are directly affected must be bold enough to point fingers at billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, who is worth 215.5 billion dollars and will continue to make more fortunes/profits on the brilliance of what he and others have created because social media technology is here to stay and it will continue to influence the exodus of world migration for our young population all across the globe. So inevitably, Mark Zuckerberg should responsibly come to the aid of these circumstances the world faces because his innovation has created a path to new issues for the world.