Why sending an alert is the wrong thing to do
Alert letters keep coming: Beware here’s the latest anti-Islamic site. Then a URL so you can verify that it is as described. Then a request to tell all Muslims.
Sincere. Misguided. Counter-productive. Little do the senders realize they are actually helping the sites they are trying to fight. The Internet is a different medium and the rules that applied to previous media do not always apply here. If there is a bad book, you can tell others about it. Nobody will rush to buy it.
In the click-click world of the Internet, the first thing people do is to click on the URL, thus increasing hit counts and boosting the morale of the site owners. Second, it helps with search engine placement, as some will use the increased traffic as a sign of popularity. You just helped create the monster you wanted to fight! If you don't want people to visit a site, don't tell them about it.
It’s easy to setup a page on the Internet. It’s difficult to draw traffic to it. Any anti-Islamic site will die if it faces a frozen counter. That happens if you leave it alone. But if you tell everyone about it and ask them to do the same, you are volunteering as their publicity agent. For most sites the best is to let it die of neglect.
Next time you receive an alert about an anti-Islamic site, delete it. The best is to promote good Islamic sites. Let the good drive out the evil.
Another Anti-Islamic Site
By: Khalid Baig Al-Balagh
