The Cost of Clicks

From betrayal among friends to moral erosion, social media is reshaping values, tempting youth, and amplifying content that shocks more than it informs.

- Raqif Makhdoomi

I was scrolling through X, formerly Twitter, when a tweet kept appearing over and over. Normally, I scroll past vulgar posts without a second thought. They flood timelines, designed to provoke, amuse, and shock.

But this one stopped me. The words “Recorded secretly” jumped out, and I felt a pang of unease.

The tweet narrated a story about a girl whose friend was secretly recorded by her boyfriend's friend. It described a night when four people went out: the boyfriend, the girl tweeting, the friend who got recorded, and the friend behind the camera.

According to the account, the two friends stepped aside, leaving the couple alone. The boyfriend's friend filmed them without consent.

At first, the girl tweeting claims she resisted the situation, seeing her friend being coerced. Yet soon, the story shifted: money exchanged hands, and she helped the boy, allegedly enjoying the unfolding events and making her friend pay for their outing.

Reading it, I felt a deeper chill than the mere vulgarity of the story.