Mufti Menk – A Muslims Guide to Social Media

			We're also finding at the same time Hamdulillah that Muslims are becoming more influential generally
online and the becoming more famous, mashallah SAF sitting next to me SuperSaf he's got almost 2
million subscribers on YouTube, I shall live
		

			from the law. And even in scholarship, mashallah there is now you start seeing speakers like
yourself and other, the art handler rising in the ranks, etc.
		

			The advice, what advice would you give? Is social media, a tool we should engage in? Or is there
some sort of approach to it, you'd give now that you've been in it for a while with the, I think we
have no option. We're living in an age where social media is a part of our lives, whether we like it
or not. I think initially, in the early ages of a person's life, infancy childhood, they should be
restricted to a degree based on their intellect and based on their surroundings and the environment
they live in. It's not like we're going to ban them until a certain age, but it's more like, yes, at
a certain age, we will allow them supervised access to social media. And that can be in many
		

			different ways. But
		

			as you grow older, you need to be responsible social media has, it's a double edged sword, you know,
and we need to know that you can use it for something really good. So I mean, people have made a
living out of it. And businesses have used it in order to be able to sell their products and so many
other things. I, for one, have learned so much about the world, through social media, and so many
different things. We need to also know how to restrict ourselves regarding what we watch, and, you
know, the algorithms and so on. I remember, on my YouTube channel, for example, we had blocked quite
a lot of the adverts that we whatever we could, and then there was a certain brother who came in and
		

			said, Listen, I saw this, and it was quite outrageous. And then we found no, it was supposed to be
blocked, you know. And then I found that YouTube has an algorithm that actually looks into how the
end user uses YouTube as well. So it's not just you. So on my side, I've blocked it. Now, if you
seeing anything, it's you.
		

			See, so that's very true. Yeah. So so people don't realize that they come and blame us to say, but I
haven't seen those ads. We've blocked those adverts, but because of your usage of it. So getting
back to what we were saying.
		

			As you develop and people begin to follow you people follow for different reasons. I'd like to think
a large number of people follow silly things. Something that's just a laugh, something that's funny,
something that's naughty, something that's perhaps outrageous as well.
		

			So we need to be careful, because not everyone who's famous is actually famous for the right
reasons.
		

			It doesn't mean Oh, wow, that person is trending that person, you know, you get excited, but if they
are famous, it's a responsibility, very big responsibility. With myself, I always try to downplay
the fact that I've got so many million people who follow and so on. Um, someone told me the other
day that the different variations of hashtags of mine on Tik Tok have had more than 3 billion views.
		

			And I quickly checked it, and I said, Oh, wow, I didn't even realize this was the case. But it's
fine, because I don't really have many followers on Tiktok. Because obviously, the account is semi
inactive. Today, someone was telling me, let's activate it, let's do something. It's a big platform.
It's a big, and I'm considering it. The only thing stopping me is time. I don't have the time. I
really, I finally have a small team of people doing things for me. But I still don't have the time.
I think it's very time consuming. And people are doing a wonderful job posting mufti, mink things
and whatever else. And there's some criticism as well, which is healthy. Not to say I always take
		

			the criticism in a positive light. I look at it and I tell myself, is it right what they're saying?
If it is, I will effect some change. If it is not excuse them. And that's it. Sometimes you get a
chance to reply. And sometimes you don't. But the responsibility that comes with being famous people
look at you, they look up to you, they want to mimic you they want to follow they want to
		

			the other day, someone said I'm one of your followers, and I said we all follow the Prophet Salla.
So basically, what I mean is that you know, so I said social media terms, they've coined the term
follower. It just means I'm interested in knowing what you put online. That's what it means. Not
necessary. You don't even know me, you can't really be a follower. But that's the term that's used.
We have a great responsibility. And I think we should not take things too seriously that we see
online a lot of the times, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence, it
		

			To be very tricky, it's become so tricky. Just today I had a person telling me that you know, when
you need to have a little
		

			secret code or secret word between you and your loved ones, where if you're in distress and you call
they would actually that would be the word because there are people who are calling loved ones of
others with their voices and claiming that they need money and they need so on and they're stuck in
some other place and they do they swear that that's the person. I mean, I heard an AI version of
what of something I was supposedly said. And I was baffled when I say this, and then I realized what
it wasn't me man, you know, if I could fool you your own voice and who is yes, it fooling me myself.
I mean, come on with my own voice and I say someone sounds exactly like me, is it? No, this is a I